256 GNATS OR MOSQUITOES — CHAPTER X 



a link between the gnats and midges, differ so markedly 

 that there can be no doubt that they should be placed in a 

 family by themselves, as though they closely resemble 

 other Mosquitoes in the venation of their wings and in 

 other general characters, their mouth-parts are formed like 

 those of midges, so that they have no proboscis in the sense 

 of the word as applied to other Mosquitoes, and have in 

 place a short, bilobed organ, ending in a pair of blunt knobs 

 not unlike that of the Indian " sand-fly," figured on page 82. 

 The remaining four sub-families are distinguished by the 

 old characters of their type genera, viz., by the relative 

 length of their palpi, so that the five sub-families may be 

 tabulated as follows : — 



Section A. — Pi-oboscis formed for piercing. 



I. — lirilliantly coloured insects, with a very long, curved proboscis. 

 (a) Palpi about as long as the proboscis in both sexes 

 {Mctjarhina); or long in J , shorter in $ (Toxorhynchites). 

 Megarhinina. 

 II. — Dull-tinted insects, with straight proboscis. 



{$} Palpi about as long as the proboscis in both sexes, those 

 of the J clubbed at the end, those of the $ linear. 

 Anophelina. 



(7) Palpi about the length of the proboscis in the 3' » but 



much shorter in the $ , being in her usually very short. 

 CumciNA. 



(8) Palpi very short in both sexes. 



jEdomina. 



Section B.— Mouth-parts not formed for piercing, there being no 

 true proboscis. Palpi small. 



COEETHRINA. 



The detailed characters of the various genera apper- 

 taining to each separate sub-family will be tabulated in 

 their systematic order, but it will be well here to explain 

 the peculiarities of the form and arrangement of the scales 

 and bristles on which Mr. Theobald's new classification is 

 mainly based. 



On the opposite page, characters of this sort which have 

 been found by him to be available for the purposes of generic 

 distinction, are collected together in graphic form for ready 



