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Some of the specimens so collected, after heing killed in the ordinary 

 way, should be carefully pinned on discs with Nd. i'() pins oi- fine 

 silver wire (with a littler ])ractice this will l»c found by no means 

 so difficult as it may at first siifjit appeal'), while otiiers should ho 

 preserved in alcohol. Spirit specimens are necessary, since the 

 microscopic characters exhibited by the last joint (jf the tarsi are 

 often indistinguishable in dried examples. 



Genus CULICOIDES, Latreille. 

 Genera Crustaceorum et Insectorum, T. IV., p. 251 (1809). 



Plate I., figs. 1-3. 



This genus, of which the common European C. pulicaris, L., is 

 the type, consists of small or minute Midges, varying in length from 

 1 to 2 mm. according to the species, and usually dark greyish- 

 brown or blackish in colour, though the abdomen of the female 

 after feeding is often rosy, owing to the contained blood. The males 

 are distinguishable from the females by their tufted or plumed 

 antennse and more elongate shape. Although in the figures on 

 Plate I. the short proboscis is shown between the palpi, in reality 

 it is not visible from above, in which position the head itself is 

 usually partly concealed by the thorax. The wings, which, as 

 in all Ceratopogoninae, when at rest are carried flat, closed one over 

 the other like those of a Tsetse-fly, have their surface, at least in 

 the female sex, more or less clothed with minute hairs, and, though 

 in some species almost devoid of markings, are often conspicuously 

 blotched and speckled with darker colour (Plate I., fig. 2), or else 

 infuscated and marked with hyaline spots (Plate I., figs. 1 and 3). 

 Microscopic characters are provided by the feet, the length of the 

 emj)odium or median appendage of the last tarsal joint being less 

 than half that of the claws, and the latter having at the base on 

 their under surfaces one or more long and fine setae, which, in dried 

 specimens at any rate, are often difficult to see. 



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