WYEOMYIA SMITHII 97 



annually bred in my laboratory and often examples escape. On one solitary 

 occasion a specimen lit upon my hand resting on the back of a chair, and I 

 kept very quiet for several minutes watching it. It moved about a little, touched 

 the surface with its beak several times with a sort of jabbing motion ; but made 

 no real attempt to puncture. It tried to assume the resting position but 

 seemed to be annoyed by the hair on the hand and after shifting about for a 

 little flew away. . . The resting position is peculiar. The head points down- 

 ward at an angle to between the front legs and the hind legs are curled over 

 so far as to give the insect the appearance of attempting a somersault and being 

 caught midway in the attempt. 



" The adults do not make their appearance under natural conditions until the 

 end of May, and issue irregularly until the end of October or even early Novem- 

 ber. . . . Nothing has been observed as to the length of adult life and nothing is 

 known of their feeding habits. Mr. Brakeley has seen them apparently oviposit- 

 ing during the day. I have never found them on flowers and the inference is 

 that they are, under ordinary conditions, active only at night." 



The larvae were first discovered by Mr. J. Turner Brakeley, who found them 

 in November, 1900, in the leaves of the pitcher-plants in the swamps surround- 

 ing his cranberry-bogs at Lahaway, New Jersey. The species was not identified 

 at the time, and was supposed to be the common Culex pipiens, as at that time 

 our knowledge of the larvae of our native mosquitoes was very imperfect. For- 

 tunately Mr. Brakeley persisted in his investigations. 



" In January, 1901, he cut out a few of the pitcher plant leaves, stripped 

 them from the core of solid ice that they contained and, looking through it, 

 saw wrigglers imbedded in all parts, in all sorts of shapes ; but mostly in a 

 half coil. The temperature had been down to two degrees below zero as regis- 

 tered by a standard minimum thermometer, and radiation probably lowered 

 this even more. 



" A number of leaves were gathered, the cores of ice with all they contained 

 were removed, and the lumps were placed together in a jar in a moderately warm 

 room. The ice melted slowly, and, as the larvae were gradually freed, they 

 dropped to the bottom where, for a time they rested ; apparently lifeless. But 

 as the amount of ice decreased, feeble motions here and there indicated a revival 

 and, long before the lumps were completely melted, those first released were 

 moving about actively. This, be it noted, was in water not much above the 

 freezing point and, when the ice had all melted and the debris had settled, the 

 larvae became busily engaged in feeding. 



" The specimens were sent to me as a curiosity, January 32d, and arrived in 

 very good condition. A few had succumbed to the dangers of the journey, but, 

 altogether, there was a good lot of lively wrigglers. The bottle was nearly full 

 of water, it had had a five mile wagon drive over a rough road, had been 

 transhipped no less than four times before it reached New Brunswick, and then 

 was thrown into a delivery wagon and jolted through the city streets before it 

 actually reached me. Under these circumstances any regular breathing of the 

 kind usually described was utterly out of the question and the drownings should 

 have been numerous; but really only a small number died. 



" At short intervals other jars were received, all out of melted ice taken from 

 pitcher plants, until I had several hundred active wrigglers in eight different 

 jars. Some of the leaf chunks had only ten or a dozen larvae, others ran as 

 high as thirty or more. The jars were all placed on a counter shelf near a 

 steam radiator, and it was expected that in a few days there would be pupae and 

 adults. But the days passed into weeks and the weeks into months without 

 change other than a very gradual increase in size. The larvae were just as active 



