7 AUGUST 1982, Page 17

Mosquito lore

Sir: The anopheles mosquito is, indeed, responsible for a good deal of woe as the vector of malaria. It is not, however, as your reviewer Richard West mistakenly asserts (10 July), the intermediate host of yellow fever as well. The mosquito to be blamed for transmitting the virus of this disease is Aedes aegypti, known before one of those upheavals of classification that plague biology as Stegomyia fasciata.

Catherine Morton

The Studio, Chaldon Herring, Dorchester, Dorset