Volume 1

The mosquitoes of North and Central America and the West Indies / by Leland O. Howard, Harrison G. Dyar, and Frederick Knab.

  • Howard, L. O. (Leland Ossian), 1857-1950.
Date:
1912-1917
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The mosquitoes of North and Central America and the West Indies / by Leland O. Howard, Harrison G. Dyar, and Frederick Knab. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

    385/570 (page 343)
    ship Concho/' Key West to Galveston, as follows: Civil data Aug. 6, '09; Ship's time 10 a. m.; Latitude 28.40; Longitude (Greenwich) 93.30; Cloud of mosquitoes large, lazy and hungry. Wind N. E. Moderate at the time. The above mosquitoes were about 60 miles from the nearest land. I never before ex- perienced mosquitoes over 5 miles from land, and only a few times even at that distance. No specimens of the mosquitoes were received, but in view of Mr. Mitchell's observations quoted above, there seems no reason to doubt the explicit record of Captain Young to the Hydrographic Office of the United States gov- ernment. Grubbs, in a paper previously quoted, in the course of his investigations of vessels as carriers of mosquitoes, at the Gulf Quarantine Station, concludes from evidence submitted that in seven cases of sailing vessels in the Gulf of Mexico mosquitoes came aboard; in two instances two miles from shore, in one instance ten miles from shore, in three instances fifteen miles, and in one instance twenty miles. Among these mosquitoes there were no malarial or yellow fever forms, all belonging to species of Aedes. The following paragraphs are taken from a letter received in 1903 from Surgeon A. C. H. Kussell, United States Navy, of the U. S. F. S. Newark, written at Port of Spain, Trinidad. These paragraphs contain an important contribution to the subject under discussion: At Montevideo, Uruguay, while the ' Newark' and the ' Detroit' were at anchor more than two miles from the shore, mosquitoes in considerable numbers were frequently blown on board by the land breeze. I send you a specimen of these mosquitoes, which I caught in my cabin last June. The land breeze which brought them off was moderate in force. [The species proved to be Anopheles annulipalpis Arrib.] At Uha Grande, Brazil, mosquitoes were blown or flew on board the ships at anchor more than a mile from shore. . . . While the ' Detroit' was at target practice in June, 1903, off the English Banks, Eiver Plate, nine miles from Flores Island and fourteen or fifteen miles from the mainland of Uruguay, a moderate breeze blew mosquitoes on board in swarms during several days and nights. The insects were most numerous at night. The opposite shore of the river was from sixty to a hundred miles away. These mosquitoes were small, delicate and black colored. Unfortunately no specimen of them was caught and preserved. Lieutenant Commander J. H. Hetherington, U. S. N., states that, while he was attached to the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Steamer ' Gedney' in the spring of 1884, the ship went out one morning early to take soundings on a shoal to the eastward and southward of Galveston, Texas. Just after anchoring at the shoal about 9 o'clock a. m., a heavy squall of rain passed over the ship from the west- ward. After it had rained hard for a few minutes the weather became clear and warm. As soon as the rain ceased, it was seen that the ship was infested with a dense swarm of large, black or dark looking mosquitoes that were unusually voracious and immediately attacked every one. In a few hours they had entirely disappeared. The ship was at that time about 27 miles from land. The mosquitoes ordinarily noticed on board ship in Galveston Harbor were of a light brown color, and smaller than those which came with the squall above mentioned. Manson states in his work on tropical diseases that ships anchored a mile \ from shore are safe from infection by mosquitoes. The experience of our ships |