The Hawaiian gazette., 1909-06-04

mosquito the responsibility for the
spread OF yellow fever that saucy lit
tie insect has had Its home and its
habits pried into on every hand, and
in ten years the world has learned more
about II than in all the generations
before. And still the scientist is not
satisfied with what he has learned of
II, but is studying with more determi-
nation than ever A few decades ago
men knew that there were only a few
species, or tribes of mosquitoes. Now
/ they know 400 species. and the end is
not yet.
One of the most interesting addi-
lions to our knowledge of the mos
quito is that just given out by the
Smithsonian Institution, which is the
result of the Investigations made by
August Busck of the mosquito life
along the Panama canal. By patient
search, covering the end of one dry
season and the beginning of the fol-
lowing rainy season, he was able to
get together 80 different kinds of them.
Some of them were good, others were
bad, and few were Indifferent. The
good ones seemed to make a BUSH
ness of eating the young of the bad
more harm than to bite whenever op-
portunity offered Thirty of the species
he found were entirely new to science,
! and Ii is his opinion that continued
search would reveal still others. But
even the present knowledge of the
isthmian mosquito shows more diff
ferent species in that territory than
in any other territory of equal size in
the world.
There are three kinds of mosquitoes
which are most familiar to the lay
man, just as the Smith, Brown and
Jones families are said to be the most
numerous in the English speaking
world. The most familiar of the mos
quito families is the Culex. There are
dozens of different branches of this
family, but the kinship is not so re-
mote but that the entomologist can
trace the likeness. This Culex family
of mosquitoes is very reputable one.
OF course it bites, and is very bother
some AZ times, but yet it has never
been convicted of any high crimes
and misdemeanors, such, for instance,
as the spread of disease.
Next to the Culexes are the Anopheles.
There is but little to be said in their
behalf, though they are able to put
up q pretty defense. They are the
carriers of the malaria germ. Science
has not made out a good case against
the whole family, and 1t appears that
there are some of them which do not
deserve the opprobrium that the suf-
ferer from chills and fever hurls at
the whole tribe. But the most of them
do spread malaria. They, however,
take a different view of the situation.
From their standpoint it is man that
gives them malaria, and they only
return 1t with interest.
1T happens this way. Here is n
splendid looking specimen of the mos
quito kinda female always. She hap
pens to meet with a person on her
travels, and she concludes to suck a
little blood. She never heard of such
a thing as malaria, and the person
does not advise her of the fact that
he has it. The result is sick mos
quito, suffering from malaria. She
loafs around awhile, nursing herself
back to health, and when she gets we'll
enough to travel about again, she gets
a thirst for human gore once more,
and bites some other person. She has
little saw and spear with which she
attacks him, and in order to aid in the
extraction OF the blood she puts a
little saliva into the wound she makes.
1t so happens that in this saliva is the
germ that she caught from biting the
other person, and in this way the Sec
ond person gets it. When this germ
lands into the second human body it
attacks the red corpuscles in the
blood. The germ multlplies with
lightning rapidity, and the chills and
fever follow the breaking of the cor
-puscles asunder in great numbers.
The third family known to the lay
man. is the Stegomyia. This is the
family that is responsible for the
spread of yellow fever. Some of the
members are probably innocent, but
the whole family has been put under
the ban. This family constitutes the
aristocracy of the mosquito world.
These mosquitoes wish no mud puddles
for their homes. no dwelling places
in swamps. They want fashionable
quarters near human beings. They
want clean quarters, too. These quar-
ters must be rain barrels, vases, idle.
water buckets and such places. They
like to live in peoples houses, and to
adjust their habits to those of the
household, while the Anopheles family
insist on coming around after bedtime.
The health of each member of the
Stegomyia family is always good UNI
til one happens to bite some person
who has yellow fever. Through drink
ing this sick persons blood, 1t gets a
germ into its little inside that makes
1t sick. This germ eats through the
walls of rhe mosquitoes stomach and
plays other bad tricks. AT the end of
70 days that germ has become live
wire, even though 1t is so fine that
the best microscope fails to reveal it.
When an infected mosquito wants an
other dinner of human blood and bites
a person, II hands back the germ It
inadvertently took from the yellow