WASPS CAPTURING MOSQUITOES 171 



northernmost Sweden, records two species of Empididte (Hormopeza ohliterata 

 and Tachydromia macula), and a species of Scatophagidae (Cordilura Ticemor- 

 rhoidalis) as active enemies of mosquitoes. We give a free translation of his 

 interesting account : 



" It is well known that when animals collect in large numbers — as for example 

 lemmings or grasshoppers migrating from one locality to another — they are 

 attacked by numerous predaceous enemies; the lemmings by foxes and birds 

 of prey — the grasshoppers by various birds. Similar conditions are found with 

 the enormous swarms of Culex, as well as with those of Simulia and Cera- 

 topogon. 



" I have already communicated to this Academy my observations on one of 

 the predaceous enemies of mosquitoes, Tachydromia macula, which catches its 

 prey by the help of its specially adapted front legs. 



" Not less agile and voracious enemies of the mosquitoes are two other small 

 predaceous flies Cordilura hcemorrhoidalis and Hormopeza ohliterata, which 

 even come inside the tents of the Lapps in order to catch the mosquitoes there. 



" Of the Hormopeza, which Prof. Zetterstedt only found in one example and 

 of which Prof. Boheman has since found also but one male, I found in great 

 numbers of both sexes near the river Sidosjocki on the Ounastunturi mountain 

 while I visited a Lapp house there. I had first occasion to observe them inside 

 the house, where they flew about catching such gnats as had gained entrance in 

 spite of the continuous smoke. As I previously had noticed great swarms of 

 gnats outside, over the top of the cabin, I went out to seek the Hormopeza there 

 and found them in great numbers. They continued preying upon the gnats far 

 into the night and were found in company with the above mentioned Cordilura" 



Paul Combes has observed that in the island of Anticosti freshly emerged 

 mosquitoes were attacked and killed by another blood-sucking dipteron, Siinu- 

 lium, which is a great plague in that region. 



A male of a very common and widely distributed predaceous fly, Scatophaga 

 stercorarius has been found by Claude Morley sucking one of the non-biting mos- 

 quitoes (Corethins) and presumably does not discriminate against the biting 

 ones. 



Two species of wasps have been observed to prey upon adult mosquitoes. 



Charles Ferton, in the Annals of the Entomological Society of France for 

 1901 (p. 113), states that, at Bonifacio in Corsica, a specimen of Crabro quadri- 

 maculatus was captured carrying an incompletely paralyzed male of Culex to 

 its nest, and states that it is probable that this little wasp also captures Anoph- 

 eles, and so merits esteem in a m_alarial country. 



Mr. H. J. Browne, of Washington, at Calapatch Island, 70 miles south of 

 Batabano, Cuba, and 30 miles east of the Isle of Pines, found the large wasp, 

 Moiiedula signata, in great numbers. They seemed to make their practical diet 

 on the yellow-fever mosquito, which they seized upon the wing and devoured in 

 large numbers. Mr. Browne says that he has seen one of these wasps seize and 

 devour upon the wing 20 mosquitoes in the space of five minutes. Bates, in his 

 " Naturalist on the Eiver Amazon," states that this particular wasp is an enemy 

 of the motuca fly (a tabanid, Lepiselaga) , and that one of the wasps captured a 

 motuca from his (Bates') neck and carried it off to its burrow. 



