10 MOSQUITOES 



uorniiil. An insect in a l)roe(ling'-ca<2ro may dio in twonty- 

 fonr lioni's, l)nt that does not mean that it may not live 

 for weeks outside. (\>rtain insects die (|uiekly from 

 frigdit nnder such conditions, or from violent efforts to 

 escape. I once covered a very larg-e Yucca plant with 

 g-auze netting- and placed under the netting about a hun- 

 dred honey bees, in order to see whether the flowers of 

 Yucca could be fertilized by bees. In twenty-four hours 

 every one of the insects was dead, and yet we know that 

 the honey bee is a long-lived insect. Such evidence as 

 we have, however, shows that mosciuitocs are also long- 

 lived. It seems that they cannot live many days with- 

 out plenty of air. Dr. Veazie, of New Orleans, Avrites 

 me that he has kept them alive with various substances 

 for a month. AVithout water or food, the limit seemed 

 to him, from his observations, to be live days for all va- 

 rieties he tried. If therc^ is no water in the house he 

 states that the mosquitoc^s will leave the house and seek 

 water. He has seen them repeatedly go down into a 

 pitcher or a glass, remain for a few minutes, and then Hy 

 away. He thinks that they do that principally to get a 

 drink, although he has found eggs in a glass of water 

 and in pitchers. Mr. Mitchell, of Victoria, Tex., how- 

 ever, writes that he ke])t a number of moscpiitoes in n 

 box once, to see how long they could liv(^ on air, and that 

 on the twenty-first day none had dic^l. Medical ob- 

 servers in their ex])erimental work with the mos(piitoes 

 of the genus Anojiheles have been able to keep adults 

 alive under glass, by feeding them upon slices of banana 

 or some other fruit, for weeks, the banana being renewed 



