REPORT ON MOSQUITOES. 159 



birth. But when the necessity of seeking food or a place to 

 oviposit arises, it is not easy to put a limit on the distance which 

 the insect will cover. As the eggs are always laid on the sur- 

 face of the water, this fact exercises an influence on both the 

 length of individual life and on the flight. 



All of the species are house mosquitoes, i. e., they make a 

 positive effort. to get indoors, through screens, between windows 

 and in other accessible and apparently inaccessible ways. They 

 are as ingenious in this respect as Culex pipiens, and infest bed- 

 rooms in greater proportionate numbers. At New Brunswick 

 at least 100 pipiens develop for one Anopheles, yet in 1903, when 

 I looked after this point, I found almost or quite as many Ano- 

 pJieles in my bedroom as there were Culex. So, in house cap- 

 tures elsewhere, the Anopheles were always present in dispro- 

 portionate numbers. 



Hibernation is in the adult stage, and while the insects find 

 plenty of shelter outdoors, it is nevertheless true that they prefer 

 to get into buildings if at all possible, and preferably into cellars. 

 Anopheles pnnctipennis is rarely seen at Lahaway in the adult 

 stage, though Mr. Brakeley has taken, a few in the rooms each 

 season. Larvae may be found more readily, especially late in 

 the season; but they are by no means numerous. Yet in the 

 cellars and out buildings of the house and cranberry sheds and 

 among the stored crates, Mr. Brakeley took in one winter approx- 

 imately 5,000 specimens! It is fair tO' assume that not all of the 

 hibernating examples were captured, either. As some specimens 

 begin to seek winter quarters in September and the start in spring 

 is not made until May, some individuals have a life period of 

 nearly or quite eight months. Only the females survive and 

 none of them feed before they go into retirement. All the speci- 

 mens dissected during the winter showed an empty alimentaiy 

 canal and undeveloped ovaries. In the early winter the abdo- 

 mens were plump and filled with a fatty mass ; in the early spring 

 the body had shrunken and the fatty mass had disappeared. 

 Normally a specimen will retain its selected position all winter, 

 hugging the wall closer as the weather is colder, extending the 

 legs as it grows warmer, and not until the warm weather has fully 

 set in is there any attempt at flight. In wami weather they fly 

 readily, when disturbed, to some other nearby hiding place ; in cold 

 weather they may be picked ofi: or \\\\\ CA-en allow themselves to 

 drop tO' the ground. In a well warmed house specimens some- 

 times become active during mid-winter and may bite, . I have 

 been bitten in February under such circumstances in the station 

 building, during daylight hours, though in a darkened room. 



