10 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



Culex, but floating in a more extended position. Microscopic 

 examination showed a difference in the breathing trumpets, for, 

 while each trumpet in the Culex pupa has a characteristic curved 

 opening, these had a square-cut ending. 



After two or three days the adults emerged from the pupal 

 skins, the mosquito standing with its first two pairs of legs 

 spread widely on the skin of the water while it drew the last pair 

 of legs from the case, and not, as is so often stated, standing on 

 tiptoe on its empty pupal skin while it waited for its wings to 

 harden. It runs about on the skin of the water just as freely and 

 safely as animals run about on dry land. These adults at once 

 assumed the typical position of Anopheles, standing on their 

 heads, that is, keeping all parts, the proboscis, head, thorax, and 

 abdomen, in the one line. 



The outdoor recognition of Anopheles, whether in the larval 

 or adult state, is rendered mnch simpler by these characteristic 

 positions — the larvae floating horizontally, and the adult resting 

 with the body roughly vertical. 



Microscopic examination showed these adults to have the palpi 

 in both sexes of about the same length as the proboscis, the head 

 to have flat and narrow curved scales, in addition to large 

 upright forked scales, as mentioned by Giles (" Gnats or 

 Mosquitoes"). The wings, as noted by Theobald in the mono- 

 graph already referred to, were found to be " covered with small 

 scales ; the first submarginal cell was longer and narrower than 

 the second posterior cell; both the second and third long veins 

 ran past the cross veins into the basal cells," a character which 

 that author has found to be very marked in all species of 

 Anopheles examined by him. 



I next obtained a larva in a child's specimen bottle at the 

 Brunswick West Slate School. From the puddle from which it 

 was taken fourteen more were obtained. 



Since then the larvae have been obtained from Footscray, 

 Ascot Vale, Brunswick, Royal Park, Carlton, Kew, Deepdene, 

 Toorak, Camberwell, Richmond, and Sandringham — all within a 

 few miles of Melbourne, and in different directions, so they seem 

 well distributed. In fact, the only place from which I failed for 

 some time to take them was the University grounds, but a last 

 look in the last remaining surface-water pool resulted in twenty 

 being obtained after a close search. Hence they have been 

 taken in every locality in which they have been searched for. 



I wrote to several country teachers who attended my lectures 

 at the last summer school, and so far have received the larvge of 

 Anopheles from Johnsonville, near the Gippsland Lakes, from 

 Emerald, and from Elphinstone, near Castlemaine. They have 

 also been taken at Dromana, on the eastern shore of Port Phillip. 



The puddles in most places have now dried up, killing 



