510 MODERN CLASSIFICATION OF INSECTS. 
lancets are introduced into the skin. It is supposed that, at the same 
time, it instils into the wound a venomous liquid, which, while it 
enables the blood to flow faster, is the chief cause of the subsequent 
irritation. 
The musquito, moustique, or maringouin, which appears to be a 
species of this family, is far more annoying in its attacks upon the 
inhabitants of America and India than our European species is to 
us; it is there requisite to have the beds enclosed in a curtain of 
fine gauze, to defend the sleeper from their attacks. In the North 
of Europe, also, they are very tormenting; the inhabitants being 
under the necessity of driving them away with smoke, and of anoint- 
ing the exposed parts of their bodies with grease, to secure them- 
selves from their bites. 
In the first part of the Trans. of the Entomological Society, Mr. 
W. B. Spence has published a critical examination of a passage in 
Herodotus, which has much perplexed commentators, relative to the 
means adopted by the Egyptians * to guard against these insects, 
known to the Greeks under the name Konopes, the fishermen merely 
throwing a casting-net (dap@iEdnorpoy) over the bed. Juvenal and 
Horace, on the other hand, described the conopeum or gnat curtain. 
It appears very probable, that several distinct species, belonging 
both to the present and following family, have been confounded 
under the common name of musquito. ‘The musquito of the United 
States is, however, certainly a species of Culex, for specimens of 
which I am indebted to Mr. R. H. Lewis. The small Simulium 
is there called the black fly. Poey also communicated to Robineau 
Desvoidy a Culex (C. Mosquito R. D. Monogr.) known under that 
name in Cuba. Pohl and Kollar have described the Brazilian musquito 
under the name of Culex molestus. ‘These authors, however, state 
that the Portuguese in Brazil also give the name Musquito to a mi- 
nute species of Simulium. 
I must refer, for many curious details relative to the attacks of 
these insects in various parts of the world, to Kirby and Spence 
(Introd. vol. i, p. 113.), and the Magazine of Nat. Hist. 1st series, 
No. 27. 
It is worthy of remark, that notwithstanding the great general de- 
* This passage in Herodotus, proving the common occurrence of these obnoxious 
insects in Egypt, is confirmatory of my suggestion in a previous page as to the mus- 
quito being the real cause of the “ plague of flies.” 
