124 MOSQUITOES OF NORTH AMERICA 



important one, which indeed it was in those days of lingering belief in spon- 

 taneous generation. However he does not mention swarming and there is reason 

 to believe that he had before him a species which does not swarm — a matter 

 which I shall take up again farther on. Later the French commander Godeheu 

 de Riville also claimed as the first his observation of the copulation of mosqui- 

 toes, made on board his ship. The account is quite detailed and it is evident 

 that in this case likewise copulation took place without swarming. 



" There are a number of accounts of such swarms about church steeples caus- 

 ing alarm of fire. We have them from Gcmiar (1813), Boll, Kirby and Spence, 

 and Hagen. Boll records three such swarms. One of them on the steeple of 

 the Nicolai church in Hamburg took place on a June evening at nine o'clock. 

 The discovery of the true nature of the apparent smoke, after the fire-department 

 had been called to the spot, caused great merriment in the crowd of spectators. 

 In 1807, when the St. Mary's church in Neubrandenburg served as a powder 

 magazine, the sudden news that the steeple was on fire caused many of the in- 

 habitants to flee precipitately from the city. As the column of smoke about the 

 steeple did not increase, some courageous men finally ventured onto the tower 

 and discovered that the source of alarm was an immense swarm of gnats. An- 

 other swarm was observed about the cross of this same church-steeple, at a height 

 of 300 feet, on the afternoon of August 30, 1859. Hagen relates that dense 

 swarms of gnats about the church-steeple at Fischhausen caused an alarm of 

 fire which has earned for the inhabitants the nickname of ' Miickenpeitscher.' 

 Koch has reported a swarm from the wings of a windmill, at a height of perhaps 

 a hundred feet from the ground, curled by the breeze and resembling smoke. 



" Haliday states that Culex detritus * occurs at Holywood, County Down, ' in 

 multitudes, during the day among hedges on the seacoast, in the evening in 

 columns about the tops of trees, appearing like smoke at the distance of a fur- 

 long.' Weyenbergh records two swarms of Culex pipiens from the vicinity of 

 Haarlem, observed in 1857, dancing in perpendicular columns. 



" Mott gives an interesting account of an unusual gathering of gnats observed 

 by him in 1879. As the article is not generally accessible and describes well the 

 phenomenon, I quote it nearly in full. ' On the evening of September 1st, be- 

 tween six and seven, after a fine, sunny day, the sky being clear, and the full 

 moon just rising as the sun went down there was a grand festival among the 

 gnats. Above the tops of the trees and hedge-rows in the low meadows north of 

 Leicester these little Diptera were out in immense numbers. . . . They as- 

 sembled in groups of various shapes, sometimes a vertical column from 6 ft. to 

 20 ft. high, and 1 ft. to 3 ft. diameter, rose from a tree top like a pillar of smoke. 

 Sometimes a sheet 4 ft. or 5 ft. high and 10 ft. long hung above the hedgerow, 

 but seemed never more than a foot or so in thickness. The following evening, 

 at the same hour, the sky being more clouded, a few gnats only were to be seen ; 

 but on the evening of the 6th, with the sky again cloudy, there was a still more 

 remarkable display of gnat life. The little creatures were out again in millions, 

 but this time the vertical column formation was adopted by nearly the whole of 

 them. These columns rose from the hedges on either side of the road, and were 

 visible for half a mile ahead at irregular distances, averaging, perhaps, 31 ft. or 

 15 ft. They formed an avenue of such a singular and unusual appearance that 

 everyone who passed along the road paused at intervals to watch and wonder 

 at them. This piece of road is about half a mile long, on the top of an embank- 

 ment which carries it over the low meadows and the river. At the farther end 



• " Hallday's Culex dctritu.1 grreatly resembles the common Culex pipiens and most probably 

 the observation should be credited to the latter species." 



