1 5 2 Mosquitoes 



Dr. Goeldi's experiments with about two hundred 

 and twenty adults of .S. calopus, as well as with two 

 hundred and sixty C. fatigans, to discover the rela- 

 tion of repasts of blood to egg-laying and mating, 

 are most interesting. He used both bred and cap- 

 tured specimens. He seems to consider blood neces- 

 sary to the development of fertile eggs, in contrast 

 to Dr. Dupree's tests, which show that it is not 

 always so. His other conclusions, applicable particu- 

 larly to S. calopus, are briefly as follows: 



i. Both male and female eat honey, which pro- 

 longs life in captivity. 



2. The female greedily seeks vertebrate blood ; 

 sucking it shortens her life by facilitating egg pro- 

 duction. 



3. Sucked blood favours and hastens egg-laying, 

 the effect on the female being accentuated and im- 

 mediately perceptible. 



4. Honey has a retarding or neutral effect, as 

 have other liquids. 



5. With certain captive mosquitoes blood with- 

 held or given will lengthen life, while retarding ovi- 

 position, or cause prompt oviposition at will of the 

 experimenter. 



6. In fertilised S. calopus the power to lay fertile 

 eggs may be latent from twent)'-three days to one 

 hundred and two days, and awakened by a meal of 

 blood. 



7. A honey diet favours the individual life, but is 

 disadvantageous to the species by retarding repro- 

 duction ; blood diet is reverse in effect. 



8. Bred, unfertilised females suck blood. 



