34 



of which Reaumur did not understand, having only observed it in the 

 open. When the insect is confined in a glass tube, it is easy to see that the 

 performance consists in besmearing every part of its body with a secre- 

 tion which is picked up from the anal extremity with its hind legs and 

 smeared successively upon the legs, the abdomen, the wings, the thorax, 

 the head and even the proboscis. As suggested by Felipe Poey, facile 

 princeps among our Cuban Naturalists, the object of this operation is 

 probably to make the mosquito water-proof before it goes to the water to 

 lay its eggs. During the digestion, the mosquito also drops some bloody 

 partirles or excrement which present the peculiary of being extremely 

 soluble in water, even after being kept in a dry condition during several 

 months. This is probably due to the admixture of the blood with the saliva 

 poured out during the process of biting, and which is generally believed to 

 render the blood more fluid while it is being sucked by the insect. As a 

 rule after a complete, uninterrupted feed of blood, the mosquito does 

 not bite again, and even shuns the contact of the bare skin (perhaps 

 because the heat of it becomes at that time disagreeable) until the di- 

 gestion of the blood has been completed. With the zancudo (night- 

 mosquito) it is at that time that its ova are laid. 



I shall not reproduce the classical description given by Reaumur 

 of the manner in which the female of a European species, Culex pipiens, 

 builds its tiny boat of eggs and floats it on the water. The zancudo of 

 Cuba goes through a similar performance; but after having launched 

 their little boat of eggs, they often stretch themselves out to die upon 

 the water, and I have wondered whether the dead insects which Reau- 

 mur attributes to new-born ones which have been wrecked and drowned 

 at the moment of leaving their puppa-shell might not be the cadavers of 

 mothers who had died in order that their bodies should remain close to 

 the ova so as to contribute to the feeding of their progeny. 



The three successive operations: fertilization, sucking of blood and 

 laying of eggs, constitute the most essential phases of the mosquito's 

 existence. The first of these operations, as in most other insects, pro- 

 bably, need not occur more than once in order that the impregnated 

 seminal sack of the female shall retain the faculty of fertilizing all the 

 ova which may thereafter traverse its oviducts. In the Cuban bee, accor- 

 ding to Felipe Poey, a single fecundation by the male, suffices for all 

 the thousands of eggs which the female bee lays during the two or three 

 years of its life. With the females of the various species of the genus 

 Culex, which, till now, had been observed, there had been no occasion 

 to test whether such a prolonged fertilizing faculty existed, inasmuch 

 as all their ova were laid at a single sitting; but the case is different 

 with the females of the Culex mosquito. These lay their ova separately 

 or in tiles of !• to 1.3 either isolated or in groups, sometimes upon the water 



