150 MOSQUITOES 



and urged to send on living* specimens in water, and to en- 

 deavor to rear the adult. It was then, however, uiifor- 

 tnnat(^ly, too late. He wrote that during the summer a 

 small creek and some earth ponds on his place became 

 entirely dry, in consequence of which all fish in them 

 died. Some time in Aug'ust there was a sufficient rainfall 

 to fill a few of the deepest places, which soon after be- 

 came almost alive with mosquito larva). These were used 

 for fish-food, until it was noticed that they were develop- 

 ing to the pupa stage, when coal oil was immediately 

 poured on the water. It Mas while the coal oil was be- 

 ing applied that the big larvre and i)up;e were first no- 

 ticed. Mr. Seal had been a collecting naturalist for 

 twenty-six years, supplying material for the aquarium 

 and for biolog"ical research, and had discovered some low 

 forms of life new to science, which were described by 

 Leidy and Ilyder, but in all his experience he had never 

 seen such large mosquito larva\ 



On being assured of the novelty and im[)ortauce of his 

 observation, he promised to watch for the subsequent 

 a]i])earance of similar larvsio, and on Sejitember 20tli 

 found other specimens which appeared after a rain which 

 occurred on September 15th or a little Ijefore. Mr. 

 Seal was able to distinguish between them and the 

 Culex larvjTp, and wrote that they were very scarce — per- 

 haps one of them to many thousands of the others. On 

 Septemljer 25th additional larva) and ])ui>a) were sent 

 in, and from these specimens the accompanying illustra- 

 tions were made. 



The larva is structurally of great interest. On com- 



