ENTOMOLOGICAL SO0[ETY OF ONTARIO. 



43 



MOSQUITOES. 



By J. Alston Moffat, London, Ont. 



The mosquitoes belonr;;s to the order " Diptera," or two- winged flies, which inchides all 

 insects of whatever size, form or color, which have out two wings, making them easily 

 separable from the Hymenoptera, to which the bees and wasps belong, which are pos- 

 sessed of four wings. 



Again, the mosquitoes belong in that order to the family Culicidae which are 

 characterized by long and slender mouth parts, long legs and antennte, of which there are 

 many genera, and the genus to which the mosquito belongs is called Culex, which is re- 

 cognizable from the other genera of the family by its biting propensity, whilst the dis- 

 tinguishing, or specific name of our common form, is Pipiens of Linaaeus ; a name sug- 

 gested by the constant piping produced during its flight by the rapid stroke of its narrow 

 wings which are said to vibrate three thousand times a minute. (Fig. 24) repr.esents a 

 mosquito, and (Fig. 25) its mouth-parts highl}'^ magnified. 



A large number of species have been described and named by diff'tirent authors — 30 

 are given to Amercia, 35 to Europe and 100 to the rest of the world. 



Mr. F. W. Urich, in a paper read before the Trinidad Field Naturalist's Club, says : 

 " So far as Trinidad is concerned I may say I have observed at least ten different kinds 

 of mosquitoes, varying in size and color, and the bite of some of them is far from being 

 pleasant." But as in other departments of natural history, species have been created 

 upon very slight differences, the probability is that many of those so-called "species" are 



Fig. 24. 



Fig. 25. 



but local variations of one species. Yet certain it is, very considerable difference in size 

 is to be observed in the same locality, but as all creatures are given to vary in size, the 

 Sime liberty may be allowed to Culex pipiens. Whether the bite of the large ones is 

 severer than that of the small ones, does not seem to have been specially observed, but 

 personal experience corroborates the statement that all bites are not equally sharp. 



The name Mosquito is a Spanish term, signifying " little fly," and would probably be 

 applied to any biting winged insect, regardless of structure, by the Spaniards who first 

 landed on the continent. And those of them that returned to their own country would 

 relate stories of suffering they had to encounter and endure from their tiny foes ; which 

 were of more than Aztec ferocity and tenacity. Even yet extraordinary tales are told of 

 the size and sivage nature of the mosquitoes of some localities over those of others. The 

 fame of the New Jersey breed and the Mississippi gallinipper has gone far abroad, but I 

 suspect that the principle cause of suffering in one locality over another, is to be attributed 

 to numbers, rather than to any difierence in the size of the insects. Travellers have re 

 corded their experience with mosquitoes in all parts of the world ; some declariug that 

 those of the Artie regions are the worst they ever encountered, but South America, from 

 its climatic conditions, and its low-lying lands, which are frequently flooded, is in a posi- 

 tion to carry off" the prize against the world for its crop of mosquitoes, and that the early 

 travellers there were duly impressed with this fact is evidenced by the names given to 



