50 AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 



which floats on the surface of the water. I have seen one nearly 

 choke to death in the attempt to swallow a good-sized bit. The 

 English observer, Dr. Daniels, in the course of his investiga- 

 tions in Africa found that the contents of the intestines of the 

 larvae are mainly vegetable matter — in some cases entirely so. 

 Occasionally limbs of minute insects or crustaceans were found, 

 as well as scales of mosquitoes and insects. 'On watching them 

 feeding it is seen that all minute particles are drawn to the 

 mouth; but many of them are rejected. This rejection is some- 

 what arbitrary, as a particle at first rejected is often subse- 

 quently swallowed. Among the bodies seen to be swallowed I 

 have seen living minute crustaceans and young larvse both of 

 Anopheles and Culices, but as a rule living animals either escape 

 or are rejected.' Christophers and Stephens state that in their 

 observations in Sierra Leone the food of the majority of the 

 Anopheles larv?c seemed to be a unicellular protococcus.'' 



Elsewhere Dr. Howard states that "The larvae feed either at 

 the surface or below the surface and their food is composed of 

 all sorts of floating particles, and in the case of the larger forms 

 they may even bite aquatic vegetation." 



Mr. Parker's formal report explains itself, so far as it goes : 



Report on the Food of Mosquito Larvcc. 



BY HORATIO N. PARKER. 



Professor John B. Smith, State Entomologist, Nezv Bruuszvick, JV. J.: 



Dear Sir — Herewith I present the results of my investigations of the food 

 of mosquito larvas. The specimens examined inckide several species and were 

 collected from seven cities in different parts of the State. Also samples of 

 mud from marshes where mosquitoes breed were anah^zed. 



The method of examination was to carefully clean the larv3e and then ex- 

 tract the alimentary canal, which was crushed and examined microscopically. 

 Most of the specimens were sent to m.y laboratory in the water in which they 

 were collected and these were most readily examined ; but a few specimens 

 were preserved in alcohol. This method of preservation was not satisfactory. 



I find that algae of different kinds form the chief food of the larvse, and that 

 in examinations of this kind the diatoms are present more frequently than 

 other forms ; however, we must not be hasty to conclude that they form a pre- 

 ponderance of the food supply, for they have hard silicious shells, which are 

 not macerated by the larvae as is the rest of the food. 



In some of the specimens protozoa were found, and as most of these animals 

 are very delicate, the chance of discovering them in the alimentary canal of 

 the larva is very small indeed. So the protozoa may form a more important 

 part of the food of the larvae than appears from my examinations. In mj- 

 analysis appears the term "Amorphous matter," which is used to designate 

 matter which is plainly of organic origin, but is too thoroughly disintegrated 

 to be identified. 



It is well known that the larvae have the habit of mulling sand-grains, and 

 these were commonly found to form a part of the contents of the food canal. 

 It is impossible to say whether the mosquitoes mouth the grains merely be- 



