41 
v Breeding Grounds of Larvae. 
tions, but always these small irrigation tanks were the 1 surest 
find,’ and, further, I never met with them at any distance from 
human habitations. I have also met with Anopheles larvae in. 
muddy pools of some size in brickfields, in the overflow from 
standposts in large cities supplied with a regular water supply, 
and even in a very shallow depression in the concrete surface of 
the platform of a bustling railway junction, also fed by a stand- 
post. . . . The pools which may be found in roadside ditches are 
another very favourite breeding-ground for Anopheles. Some of 
the collections of water in which I have found them have been 
absurdly small, and would not suffice to fill a wash-hand basin. 
Far from being, as we have been led to expect, confined to a few 
marshy pools of moderate size, they are omnipotent, and seem to be 
capable of developing in water of very varying degrees of purity.” 
In another part of his paper he refers to the larvae of 
A. Hossii as follows: “I found their breeding-pool some three 
hundred yards off, beside one of the piers of the old bridge across 
the Goomti, which flows just beneath the house. The pool was 
but a few yards long by not more than six feet wide, and, though 
it did contain a certain amount of green filamentous vegetation, 
was extremely foul. Still it is the nearest approach to the 
Anopheles pool of the West African Malaria Commission that I 
have met with inhabited by the larvae. Typical pools of this 
sort I have indeed come across by dozens, but in no case have I 
met with the larvae in such pools.” 
Such are some of the valuable observations by a naturalist in 
whom I place the greatest confidence. My own observations on 
Anopheles in England entirely endorse what Colonel Giles says. I 
have found plenty of such pools as described in the West African 
Report in districts where Anopheles abound, but never a larva 
in them. It was not until I examined rain-barrels, cattle-troughs, 
and some large muddy pools that I found the larvae in any 
numbers in England. 
Dr. Chalmers found the larvae of a small dark Anopheles 
(A. Kumasii ), which is the cause of the fever in Kumasi from 
which the troops, &c., suffered so severely during the recent siege 
in all the swamps surrounding the town. 
Sir William MacGregor tells us they breed in the brackish 
waters on the great western coast of British New Guinea.* They 
probably breed in the lagoon at Lagos. In fact, the typical Anopheles 
pool, of which we have heard so much, had best be forgotten. 
* Journal Tropical Me licinc, no. 27, vol. iii. p. G8. 
