REPORT ON MOSQUITOES. 201 



crosses the bands in the center, dividing the body color into 

 blocks. On the two apical seginents are white spots laterally, 

 near the base. The bands and stripe are generally well defined, 

 but specimens are common where they are very much diffused, 

 the apical segments being entirely yellow and the blocks appear- 

 ing as irregular spots. Beneath it is dirtv yellow or grayish. 



Habits of the Adult. 



^Vs this is perhaps the most common mosquito in New Jersey 

 in ordinary seasons, and is certainly the one that holds down 

 property values along shore, it deseiwes fuller treatment than 

 any other of the species, and it has been and will be, as a matter 

 of fact, frequently referred to in the preceding- and following 

 parts of this report. Sollicitans in New Jersey breeds only on- 

 the salt marshes, and some marshes or sections of marshes breed 

 them in such numbers that it is a bold man that would agree to 

 stand quietly for any considerable period of time. Records are 

 not wanting of persons driven almost frantic by them, and sen- 

 sational stories are sometimes -set afloat that individuals have 

 been made unconscious or delirious from their bites. Sollicitans 

 bites not only hard but readily, without much preliminary sing- 

 ing, and bites as readily during the day as during- the evening. 

 Ordinarily the specimens hide in the grass or in the shelter of 

 low bushes during the day and do not voluntarilv rise if undis- 

 turbed ; but at the slightest disturbance they investigate, and in 

 a moment a cloud surrounds the disturber. No one who has not 

 met with sollicitans on its native heath can have any idea of what 

 a swarm really means. I am tolerably well seasoned myself and 

 have been with collectors and fishermen who claimed to be prac- 

 tically mosquito proof, but we were on one occasion simply 

 dri^•en out of a woodland at the edge of a marsh along Seven- 

 Mile Beach. But not only in their breeding area are they so 

 troublesome : miles inland I have battled with them on cranberry 

 bogs while studying the pests of that crop, and have been glad to 

 get away, wringing wet with perspiration, smarting with bites on 

 every exposed part of the body and on some parts that became so 

 closely covered when stooping that the insects struck blood 

 through the clothing. 



When the wind blows hard enough to make flight difficult 

 during the day. the insects crawl up the legs of the victims, prob- 

 ing until they find a place to attack. On the male adult such 

 places are not readily reached unless low shoes are worn, but 

 a woman cannot stand it long, and children with exposed legs or 



