744 MOSQUITOES OF NORTH AMERICA 



Observations. Professor Howard kindly sent four of this species from the United 

 States National Museum. It is a small gnat, quite distinct from any I have seen 

 outside the American Continent, and may at once be told by its compactness, its 

 banded abdomen, and the wing venation and densely scaled wings. They were sent 

 by him under the name C. pungens, Wied., but they do not answer at all to the short 

 description of that species, nor do they agree with either Howard's or Coquillett's 

 specimens, for in both Howard's figure of C. pungens and Coquillett's table of North 

 American species we find the 5 has simple, not uniserrated ungues. I can find no 

 species described answering to those sent by Professor Howard. 



Original Description of Culex pretans: 



5. Head brown, occiput almost covered with pale yellow scales, some of which 

 collect in a distinct border to the eyes, and with a small patch of dark brown scales on 

 each side; antennae dark brown, the basal two joints pale testaceous; proboscis and 

 palpi dark brown, the terminal joint of the latter almost obsolete. Mesonotum 

 brown with numerous yellowish scales and a usually well defined, broad median vitta 

 of brown scales, which does not quite reach the anterior margin and is slightly 

 constricted centrally; there are two other patches of scales of the same color, about 

 one-third the length of the thorax, at the base of this vitta, separated from it by a 

 narrow line of yellow scales; scutellum brown, with many yellowish bristles; 

 metanotum evenly dark brown; pleura dark brown, with patches of pure white 

 scales; halteres yellowish white, brown at the apex. Abdomen brownish black, the 

 segments with narrow whitish basal bands, which become wide at the sides; be- 

 neath it is clothed with dirty white scales, mixed with some brown ones near the 

 apical margin of the segments. The bands are usually clearly defined, and though 

 narrow, are rarely obsolete. Legs with coxae yellowish; femora brown above, 

 creamy white beneath, and with a dot of the same color at the knee; tibiae dark 

 brown above, yellowish beneath; tarsi wholly brownish black; claws uniserrated on 

 all feet; wings hyaline, petiole of first submarginal cell about half as long as this cell. 

 Length 5 mm. 



Described from fifteen females, one of which, with a male, was bred from larvae. 



Habitat: Chester, Trenton, Lake Hopatcong, and Great Piece Meadows all in 

 New Jersey. 



Types: in the collection of the New Jersey Experiment Station. 



The only male was dissected; in color it does not differ from the female, but the 

 thoracic stripe is slightly diffused and the abdominal banding is broader and less 

 defined. The palpi are uniformly brown; the claws of the anterior and mid feet 

 unequal, the larger biserrated, the smaller uniserrated, while the posterior ones are 

 equal and uniserrated. Petiole of first submarginal cell not quite the length of this 

 cell. Length 5.3. mm. 



Description of Female, Male, and Larva of Aedes hirsuteron : 



Female. Proboscis moderately long and slender, subcylindrical, uniform; 

 labellse conically tapered ; vestiture black ; setae on labellse minute, outstanding. 

 Palpi short, about one-fifth as long as proboscis, black, the setae moderate, 

 bristly. Antennse slender, the joints subequal, rugose, pilose, black, second joint 

 slightly thickened and paler; tori subspherical, with a cup-shaped excavation, 

 luteous, darker within with a patch of whitish scales ; hairs of whorls moderate, 

 sparse, black. Clypeus rounded triangular, prominent, black, nude. Eyes black. 

 Occiput black, broadly clothed with narrow, curved, yellowish white scales, on 

 the sides broad, creamy white ones, with well-defined lateral black patch, many 

 short, erect, forked pale scales on the nape ; bristles along margins of eyes black, 

 those projecting between the eyes pale. 



Prothoracic lobes elliptical, remote dorsal ly, black, clothed with narrow yel- 

 lowish-white scales and dark bristles. Mesonotum black, clothed with narrow, 

 curved scales, a broad median stripe and short sublateral ones posteriorly above 

 roots of wings of bright bronzy-brown scales, the hmneral angles also brown; 

 scales along anterior edge, sides of disk, and about the antescutellar space 

 yellowish white. Scutellum trilobate, black, clothed with narrow, curved yel- 

 lowish-white scales, each lobe with a group of pale brown bristles. Postnotima 

 elliptical, prominent, blackish, nude. Pleurae black, coxae luteous, clothed with 

 patches of elliptical, flat, white scales and rows of pale bristles, some narrower 

 yellowish scales along upper margin. 



