118 



asked whether ttere was any difference between the gnat and the mosquito, 

 The answer given was (Vol. II., page 48) that there was good deal of difference- 

 but he found in Kirby and Spence that the characteristics differ so little that it 

 is difficult to distinguish them. This summer he had noticed numbers of a 

 large description of guat, and supposed that these were the creatures which 

 were the cause of so many letters being written to the public papers. He 

 believed it to be a fact that in some seasons the females, and in others the 

 males, preponderated, and as it is the females only which bite, this might 

 account for their being more troublesome at some periods than at others He 

 exhibited a gnat wing under his microscope that night, which exhibited iri- 

 descence, it being mounted dry for that purpose. To extract the lancets, he 

 found the best way was to put the head on a glass slide, and heat it over a lamp 

 in a drop of turpentine. It was doubtful to him whether there were five, six, 

 or seven lancets ; but in the majority he had seen only six. He thought the irri- 

 tation following the sting was generally caused by crushing the gnat before it 

 had withdrawn its lancets. They were thus broken into the flesh, and caused 

 much inflammation. He could see no apparatus for injecting poison into the 

 wound. 



Mr. Breese had the authority of Mr. McLachlan for asserting the complete 

 identity between the gnat and the mosquito, and also for the fact that the size 

 of the gnat was much increased in warm weather. 



Dr. Braithwaite called attention to the fact that the term mosquito was but 

 a family name, in which about VJ species were known, varying very much in 

 size — one species from Australia not being half the size of an English gnat. 



A Member from Woolwich had compared the species there found, and said 

 to be the mosquito, with common gnats, and could see no difference, and, in 

 fact, the same remark applied to species which he had received from New 

 Zealand. 



The President confirmed these remarks by stating he had received specimens 

 from India, which did not differ from our own. He suggested that as high 

 temperature favoured decomposition, it was possible that gnats and flies in 

 the act of stinging might introduce animal matter in a poisonous state intothe 

 system. This would cause great and serious local irritation. 



The Prefident announced the excursion of the ensuing month, and stated 

 that at the next meeting Mr. Slade would read a paper " Ou Preparing and 

 Mounting Sections of Teeth and Bone for Microscopic Examination." 



The proceedings terminated with the usual conversazione. 



Annual Dinner. — On June 23rd, those members who are in the habit of at- 

 tending the excursions, together mth several other members of the Club, dined 

 together at the Swan Inn, Leatherhead ; the chair was taken by the President, 

 Mr. Durham, and after the cloth was removed sundry toasts, loyal and compli- 

 mentary, were duly honoured. The company, after a short stroll in the neigh- 

 bourhood, returned to town by train. 



