REPORT ON MOSQUITOES. 37 



trouble on the marsh until July 12th. On or about that day an 

 extra high tide came over it, and on the 13th minute wrig- 

 glers were in every water-filled hole. Cold, wet weather retarded 

 development, but on the 21st males were out in clouds and every- 

 thing was in the pupal stage. On the morning of the 22d the 

 females were out, but would not bite. On the evening of the 

 23d it was warm, with only a slight breeze, and the Doctor was 

 brought from his hut by a peculiar humming noise which seemed 

 to fill the air. He located its source at last between sixteen and 

 twenty feet high above the marsh, where regular clouds of mos- 

 quitoes were hovering in their marriage flight. On the 24th 

 few males were seen, but the females were in droves and as 

 bloodthirsty as butchers. Then came cold west and north winds 

 that kept the insects low down among the grass. On the 28th 

 the wind veered to the south and continued all that night and 

 all day on the 29tH. On the morning of the 29th the number of 

 mosquitoes on the marsh had diminished materially, and this 

 was yet more decidedly marked on the morning of the 30th, 

 when they were quite bearable. But in the woods where on the 

 20th there had been few mosquitoes they were worse on the 31st, 

 when the Doctor came out to Tuckerton, than they were on the 

 marsh itself. 



Just after receiving this account from Dr. Nelson, I received 

 a note from Mr. Brakeley, giving in detail a record of the arrival 

 of Culex sollicitans in the pines, during the nights of July 28th 

 and 29th, increasing during the successive nights to August ist, 

 when they were distributed everywhere in great numbers. Pre- 

 viously there had been practically none of this species, and the 

 observed departure on the 28th and 29th from the marshes and 

 the arrivals in great swarms over thirty miles away on the days 

 immediately following, leaves no question as to the connection 

 between the two. That the species could have bred locally is 

 out of question, because the larval status of the pine region was 

 thoroughly known. 



In the Spring of 1904 weather conditions were unusually 

 favorable for the development of a heavy brood of cantator along 

 the entire coast north of the Great Bay. As early as March the 

 larvae were found everywhere, and on the Shrewsbur}^ River 

 marshes it was a race between the ditchers and the insects as to 

 which should win out. A few cold days retarded the insects and 

 gave the workers the chance of finishing the ditches that ran off 

 full grown larvae and pupae by the millions into the maws of 

 hungry "killies" that followed hard after the spades. The result 

 was, no first brood on these meadows and the consequent exemp- 

 tion from mosquito attack of the entire surrounding territory! 



