1907] 
MITCHELL — CULICID SUHFAMII.Y DEIXOCEIUTIXAE 
11 
VALIDITY OF THE CULICID SUBFAMILY DEIXOCEIUTIXAE. 
BY EVELYN' GROE.SBEECK MITCHEU-, WASHINGTON, I). C. 
In the August number of Psyche is a very interesting paper on Deinoceritcs 
cancer, by i\Ir. Fredrick Knab. He seems, however, to be possessed of certain delu- 
sions, which I shall atteinjit to relieve. 
Before jiroceeding to this, I wish to say that I was jiartly in error regarding the 
labial plate of this larva. I described the plate from a single dissected specimen. 
Mr. Knab has since then shown me the labial plate of another .specimen. In this, — 
and he says this is like others, — the two basal teeth and the central tooth are not, as 
I said (P.SYCHE, Feb. 190fi, j). 19, par. 4), longer than the rest, but are evenly graded; 
nor are the basal teeth sjiaced off any further than the rest. I believe that I de- 
scribed from a deformed specimen of the true labial plate and not, as Air. Knab 
says, from an inner plate, but as the specimen is not now in my possession, I cannot 
absolutely verify this. I am aware that deformed labial ])latcs are very rare; still 
I have seen a few. The teeth are otherwise as I ileseribe<l them, and I could tell 
the plate from any other at a glance, so characteristic is it. 
I did not “bring forward as a discovery of Air. Cotpullett” the unusual length 
of the second antennal joint in the adult. I merely quoted his statement to me as 
to the relative length of this joint in 1). cancer as compared with the length in all 
other known forms of Culicidae. 
Xor did I as.sert that onhj Deinoccrites po.ssesses a groove in which the mandibles 
move. It is not the presence of this groove but its prominent angulation which is 
i'haracteri.stic of this larva. Air. Knab him.self admits that this is unusual when he 
says that though “the same lateral expansion of this region occurs again in the larva of 
the Sabethid Lesticocampa lunata, the modification of the ridge into rounded lobes, 
outward from the maxillae — occurs in most mos([uito larvae but may be absent, 
as in Psorophora.” (The italics are mine.) I have not seen a .specimen of L. lunata 
and Air. Knab’s figure of it, (The larvae of Culicidae classified as indejiendcnt 
organisms, by II. G. Dyar and F. Knab — reprinted from the Jour. X. A'. Ent. 
Soc., A’ol. XIY, X’o. 4, PI. XY. Authors separates pub. Alar. 14, 190fi — the paper 
it.self having been published in December), does not show any lateral exjiansion 
much re.sembling that of Deinoccrites, — which, by the way, has a much more jironii- 
nent and sharp angulation of the groove than shown in Air. Knab’s ventral view of 
the head, (PI. Y, P.syche, Aug. ’Ofi). But even if L. lunata had such a groove a.s 
