i6o Mosquitoes 



the salt marsh, being found on the marsh, in the salt- 

 hay zone along shore, and in grassy depressions 

 among the sand hills where there was just a scum of 

 the organic mud on the surface, sometimes in foul 

 pools, preferably in clear ones, but never in clear, 

 sandy-bottomed pools, or off of the marshes. He finds 

 the larvae to be quite tenacious, being able to live in 

 soft mud for several hours, and complete their trans- 

 formation if again flooded. Fish are fatal to the 

 breeding of this species. 



Ochlerotatus cantator. — This, the third of the 

 marsh pests, commonly called the brown salt-marsh 

 mosquito, is found in the north-eastern part of the 

 United States, breeding in great swarms in the New 

 Jersey and Long Island marshes and, like sollicitans, 

 migrating inland in hordes. They have been traced 

 from the coast as far as Morristown. Dr. Smith 

 observes that O. cantator differs from the other 

 migratory forms in that the sexes fly for some distance 

 together, the males being able to stand a journey of 

 a few miles, and also in that occasional females with 

 developed ovaries are found far from any possible 

 breeding place during the earlier part of the stay of 

 an invading swarm, disappearing later. The insects 

 bite hard, flying and feeding by day as well as in the 

 evening, but sing little, and will enter houses, but do 

 not crawl through nets. The eggs are laid after the 

 fashion of sollicitans, but are larger and more num- 

 erous. The larvae are found nearer the upland, but 

 rarely on it, either in fresh or in salt pools, but pre- 

 ferably the former. The number of broods depends 

 on the weather, but in midsummer, when the eggs 



