2 PSYCHE [February 



winter storms and already drying down. These were found after a day of search 

 for adults in which Ciilex pungens and (probably) C. restuans and Anopheles pundi- 

 peiinis were found ; but no C. sollicitans. The same story was repeated on the 

 iith; and on the 19th and 20th, as the advance of the season cut off pools and 

 ditches from tide connection, it was quite interesting to watch the appearance of 

 the baby larvae in pool after pool and ditch after ditch. 



A pool in which on the afternoon of the i8th there was no trace of larvae, 

 about which not an adult could be stirred up, swarmed with minute larvae on the 

 morning of the 19th. They had hatched during the night, from eggs that were 

 already in the water and that required only the proper temperature to bring them 

 out. This pool had been severed from the tide not over 48 hours and the result- 

 ing uniformity of temperature was sufficient to produce the proper condition for 

 the larval life. At this time the temperature of the sea water in a creek at half 

 tide was 50°. The temperature of the pools in which the 3^oung larvae appeared 

 was 52°, and the older pools in which larvae were nearly full grown were at 54°, 

 all Fahrenheit. 



A very suggestive condition of affairs was found in a low meadow well above 

 tide level, which had become filled with snow and rain and by drainage and formed 

 a shallow pond about i.^ acres in area. I know positively that this area was dry 

 except in one low corner during the entire season of 1901 between May ist and 

 September 15th, and I am informed and believe that it remained dry until late 

 December. At all times during the summer the meadow swarmed with C. sollici- 

 tans and now, April 18, 1902, this entire area was inhabited by larvae of that 

 species already nearly full grown ; some, indeed, in the more shallow areas were 

 already in the pupal stage. Obviously the eggs must have been laid in the dry 

 meadow during the summer, for at no time when mosquitoes were fiying was there 

 any water to lay them into. 



A large number of adults was bred from larvae gathered from pools of all 

 kinds, ranging from fresh to very salt water and, except in one instance, only C. 

 sollicitans was bred. The exception was a single lot of larvae from a pool of 

 brackish water from which C. cantans was also obtained. 



The larva of C. sollicitans is light slate gray in color, the head yellow, without 

 markings of any kind, anal siphon short and stout, antenna short, slender, black at 

 the tip, without obvious set off or prominent tufting. The figure (pi. 1, fig. i) shows 

 very fairly the appearance of the larva ; the shape of the head and especially of the 

 vertex being quite characteristic. Several other larvae resemble this and are not 

 readily separable — notably those of C. cantans and C. taeniorhynchus. 



What happened in Cape May County between April 20th and June 15th, 

 when next 1 went there, I am imable to say ; but the season had been very dry, 



