318 NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 



can not fail of exciting contemplations of the most serious 

 kind. Indeed, one has no idea of the amazing beauty of 

 these diminutive creatures until he has observed them 

 through a microscope. 



The common Mosquito {Cukx pipiens) of America, as 

 well as of Europe, is gray, and has immaculate wings. 

 The females are the principal tormentors, hovering up and 

 down in large swarms near the water, and at night perse- 

 cuting man and beast with their stings, as well as their in- 

 tolerable music. 



Their visible proboscis is not the sting itself, but only 

 the case or scabbard which incloses the instruments for 

 piercing the skin and sucking our blood. These instru- 

 ments are five bristles, which may be seen protruding from 

 the scabbard, or proboscis, if you take hold of the neck of 

 the insect and squeeze the proboscis. These bristles, cut off 

 and placed under the microscope, appear like lancets with a 

 hook in the end, which remains in the wound made by it, 

 if the insect be driven away suddenly when sucking, and 

 which causes greater pain and inflammation than if the in- 

 sect is allowed to withdraw it when he has ceased sucking. 

 After the hollow sting has entered the flesh about three- 

 quarters of a line, and the insect has filled its body with 

 human blood, the wound begins to itch and swell — not on 

 account of the insignificant puncture, but on account of 

 the venomous saliva which entered it, for the purpose, prob- 

 ably, of diluting the blood. We see the same thing when 

 a fly drops some liquid from its proboscis upon a piece of 

 sugar, in order to dissolve it and diminish its strength, so 

 that it can suck it up. The saliva, therefore, performs the 

 same ofiice in insects that it does in mammals when mas- 

 ticating their food. 



Mosquitoes deposit their eggs in stagnant water, and 

 this is probably the reason that they are more numerous in 

 wet summers. If a hogshead or barrel of water be placed 



