Genus 

 THEOBALDIA, Neveu-Lemaire. 

 Theobaldia annulata, Schik. 



{Culex annulatits, Venall, ' List of British Diptera.' 2nd Ed. 



(1901), p. 12.) 



Plate 5. 



This species is one of the largest of mosquitoes, is common in Great 

 Britain, and may be met with either out of doors or in outbuildings and 

 houses at all seasons of the year. The localities of the British speci- 

 mens in the Museum range from Torphins, Aberdeenshire, N.B., to 

 Penzance, Cornwall, and the dates of their capture include February 

 25 and December 25. The species is occasionally taken in the 

 British Museum (Natural History), where it doubtless breeds in the 

 water cisterns. Theobald writes {pp. cit., Vol. III. 1903), PP- H^- 

 149 : — " There is no doubt that this large mosquito hibernates in sheds, 

 cellars, etc., during the winter. They are mainly noticed indoors in 

 Kent in October, and now and then in the first week of November, 

 but during the past year they were active both indoors and out right 

 through the winter." 



Theobaldia annulata bites very severely, and the puncture inflicted 

 by it is often followed by local swelling and inflammation, as well as 

 sometimes by constitutional disturbance. The varying effects of the 

 bite in different individuals have been described by Dr. W. Hatchett 

 Jackson (quoted by Theobald, loc. «V.,pp. 149-150), who, writing of an 

 invasion of the town of Weston-super-Mare, Somersetshire, by this 

 gnat in the autumn of 1902, says that " few persons in Weston and its 

 neighbourhood " have escaped its attacks. As is the case, however, 

 with all other mosquitoes, T. annulata is also able to subsist upon 

 a vegetable diet, for the same writer observes : — " I saw no males after 

 the second week in November, 1902, and at that time I noticed on a 

 sunny day, in a warm nook of our garden, numbers of this gnat — all 



