70 



THE MOSQUITO AND ITS FRIEXDS. 



A B 



03. Larva and Tupa of SMe Mosquito. 



contracts and enlarges anteriorly near the raiddle, the larval 

 skin is thrown off, and the insect appears in quite a different 

 form (Fig. G2, b). The head and thorax are massed together, 

 the rudiments of the mouth parts and of the wings and legs 

 being folded upon the breast, while there are two breathing 



tubes (d) situated upon 

 Q^i>f;,,__^ j^\ the back instead of the 



tail, which ends in two 

 broad paddles (a) ; so that 

 it comes to the surface, 

 head foremost instead of 

 tail first, a position ac- 

 cording better with its 

 increased age and expe- 

 rience in pond life. In a 

 few days the pupa skin is 

 cast; the insect, availing itself of its old habiliments as a raft 

 upon which to float while its body is drying, grows lighter, and 

 iis wings expand for its marriage flight. The males are beau- 

 tiful, both physically and raorallj', as they do not bite; their 

 manners are more retiring than those of their stronger miuded 

 partners, as they rarely enter our dwellings, and live unnoticed 

 in the woods. They may be easily distinguished from the 

 females by their long maxillary palpi, and their thick, bushy, 

 feathered antennae. The female lays her elongated, oval eggs in 

 a boat-shaped mass, which floats on the water. A mosquito 

 lives three or four weeks in the water before changing to the 

 adult or winged stage. How many days they live in the latter 

 state we do not know. 



Our readers will understand, then, that all flies, like our mos- 

 quito for example, grow while in the larva and pupa state, a)id 

 after they acquire icings do not grow, so that the small midges are 

 not young mosquitoes, but the adult winged forms of an entirely 

 different species and genus of fly ; and the myriads of small flics, 

 commonly supposed to be the young of larger flies, are adult 

 forms belonging to different species of diflerent genera, and per- 

 haps of different families of the suborder of Diptera. The typi- 

 cal species of the genus Culex, to which the mosquito belongs, 

 is Culex pipiens, described by LinnseuSj and there are already 

 over thirty North American species of this genus des^.ribed in 

 various works. Few insects live in the sea, but along the coast 



