LIFE HISTORY AND SEASONAL PREVALENCE 115 



met with an instance when they were mistaken for them. 

 No fairly expert microscopist is of course likely to be misled 

 in this way ; but it will be at least a harmless precaution, 

 for anyone who has to depend for guidance on figures, to 

 make himself familiar with a few of the commoner pollens 

 before starting zygote hunting. 



In addition to the juices of living plants and animals, 

 many species will also feed on such articles of human food 

 as are suitable to the structure of their mouth parts and 

 they show a marked preference for sweet things. Hence 

 mosquitoes may often be seen clustered on the moist sticky 

 sugar exposed for sale in the shops of an Indian bazaar, and 

 a few will generally be found feasting on the preserved fruit 

 and sweets laid out for desert on an Anglo-Indian dining- 

 table, or on puddings put aside in the larder. ISIot indeed that 

 they confine themselves to such articles ; they are not 

 adverse to milk, and will also attack raw meat, or indeed, 

 any article of food out of which anything can be got by 

 suction. On one occasion I found some Mosquitoes un- 

 mistakably feeding on filth, but believe such a habit is 

 adopted only as a last resource, for at the time I observed 

 this, all plants were dried up and juiceless. As is well 

 known, many butterflies which also normally feed on plant 

 juices, exhibit the same incongruous taste. 



Although one of our commonest Indian species is reputed 

 to do so, I have never actually seen a male mosquito bite, 

 and believe that when they do so it is only an exceptional 

 indulgence. There is, however, no doubt that some few 

 species do so occasionally. 



On this point Mr. Austen remarks : " While it is certain 

 that in a natural state only an infinitesimally small pro- 

 portion of all the Mosquitoes that come into existence can 

 possibly taste the blood of a warm-blooded animal, it is 

 reasonable to suppose that primitively all Gulicidce fed upon 

 the juices of plants. Indeed it has been stated that at the 

 present day some species are still exclusively vegetarian in 

 both sexes ; that in others, while the males are vegetarian, 

 the females suck animal blood — in some species only 

 exceptionally, in others habitually ; and, finally, that there 



