BY W. R, COLLEDGE. 117 



are native-born Australians. They are enclosed in a glass cell 

 with water, so that the light of the lantern may shine through 

 and project them on to the screen. I daresay they will be much 

 alarmed at the brilliant circle to which they are so suddenly 

 introduced. All the peculiarities of which I have been speaking, 

 their zigzag movements, breathing at the top of the water, 

 through the tail, moving in straight lines, Sec, you will see now 

 on the screen. 



This fish-like life continues for a variable period, depend- 

 ing mainly upon temperature, and the condition of the atmos- 

 phere. During hot, close, sultry days, they may reach the end 

 of this stage in a week, or ten days, but in cold wintry weather 

 it may be prolonged to two months, or more. They usually 

 moult three times during this period, casting oft' the old and 

 getting a new skin, but, like prudent folks, they always get the 

 new clothes before they throw the old ones away. They grow 

 from one-sixteenth to about half-an-inch in length. They 

 become yellower and less transparent, so that you cannot trace 

 their internal organs so clearly as you could before, and perhaps 

 the next time you visit them a complete transformation has taken 

 place. They have altered so that their own mother would not 

 know them. 



It does seem a wonderful thing in nature that one creature 

 should grow up in the inside of another. The two beings co- 

 existing for a time, but each possessing different shapes and 

 habits of life, and then at a certain stage, the inner absorbs the 

 life of the outer creature, whose head, skin, and tail, are dis- 

 carded. 



When it reaches this second stage, the skin of the larva 

 splits at the neck, the old head falls oft', and a new being with a 

 difi'erent head and body wriggles out of the old skin, and the 

 left-oft' g^.rment goes sailing away. In the water where it 

 breeds, you will find lots of these cast-oft" garments, all in one 

 piece. He doesn't first throw oft' the hat, then the coat, and 

 lastly the pants, but he wriggles out of the slit between the 

 shoulders leaving the old suit entire. 



This is now the third stage of the mosquito's existence. 

 First the egg, next the larvfe, now the pupa. He is dressed in 

 a light-fitting cream coloured suit, like a young cricketer. Notice 

 in his extraordinarily big head in fig. 4 ; that is, the large, round, 



