MOSQUITO BIOLOGY 43 



HABITS OF THE ADULT 



Sollicitans, the most common mosquito in New Jersey, breeds only 

 on the salt marshes in such numbers that he is a bold man who would 

 agree to stand quietly on some marshes for any considerable period of 

 time. Records are not wanting of persons driven almost frantic by them, 

 and sensational stories are sometimes set afloat that individuals have 

 been unconscious or delirious from their bites. Sollicitans bite hard, 

 rapidly, without much preliminary singing, and as readily during the 

 day as the evening. Ordinarily they hide in grass or low bushes during 

 the day, do not voluntarily rise if undisturbed, but if disturbed rise in 

 a cloud in a moment. No one who has not met with sollicitans on their 

 native heath can have any idea of what a swarm really means. I am toler- 

 ably well seasoned myself and have been with collectors and fishermen 

 who claimed to be practically mosquito proof, but we were on one occa- 

 sion simply driven out of a woodland at the edge of a marsh along 

 Seven-Mile Beach. But not only in their breeding area are they so 

 troublesome: miles inland I have battled with them on cranberry bogs 

 while studying the pests of that crop, and have been glad to get away, 

 wringing wet with perspiration, smarting with bites on every exposed 

 part of the body and on some parts that became so closely covered when 

 stooping that the insects struck blood through the clothing. 



When the wind blows hard enough to make flight difficult during the 

 day, the insects crawl up the legs of the victims, probing until they find 

 a place to attack, causing untold suffering, especially on exposed legs 

 of children. 



It is no exaggeration to say that half the pleasure derivable in the 

 resorts along the New Jersey Coast is lost because of the annoyance 

 caused by this species. It has one good point, however; it does not 

 make any special effort to get indoors. At New Brunswick, where my 

 house is fairly well screened, sollicitans does not get in more than once 

 or twice during the summer, while Culex pipiens and Anopheles punc- 

 tipennis work their way in despite screens. Even along shore the indoor 

 mosquitoes are nearly always pipiens, though sollicitans may be plenti- 

 ful outside. 



A large proportion of all the female specimens of this species that 

 mature on the marsh leave it soon after they are fully developed and fly 

 inland — a longer or shorter distance, as conditions may determine. All 

 these migrants are sterile, and no matter how small the brood on the 

 marsh, some of them always fly from it. From these breeding places the 

 species covers the entire Cape May peninsula — practically the entire 



