38 N. I. Agricultural Experiment Station, Bulletin 348 



tracheal gills. The scales on each side -of the eighth abdominal 

 segment are broad, separate, 35 to 40 in number, and form a large 

 patch. The head is marked with black spots. 



Importance 



A. cantator breeds abundantly from Cape May Point north, and 

 during the f^rst half of the season is the all-important salt-marsh 

 mosqSito in North Jersey. Until the drainage of the marshes where 

 it bred, it came in hordes upon the cities of Elizabeth, Newark, Jer- 

 sey City and various towns and villages lying between Raritan Bay, 

 Arthur Kill and Newark Bay and the mountains. So far as our 

 experience goes, it is now the only important salt-marsh mosquito 

 which breeds on the northern three-fourths of the Hackensack Val- 

 ley salt marsh. 



Life Habits 



The winter is passed in the egg stage in the mud in the marshes. 

 As a rule, the eggs of this species appear to be laid nearer the upland 

 and in rare instances on the upland itself. Larvae appear and de- 

 velop in salt or fresh water or any mixture of the two.^ In general, 

 however, pools formed on the salt-marsh by rain-water or by drain- 

 age from the highlands seem most satisfactory to this species. The 

 rest of its life history and development is the same as that of A. 

 sollicitans and needs no further discussion. 



Dr. Smith has the following to say about the distribution of A. 

 cantator: "In New Jersey cantator dominates the Newark, Eliza- 

 beth and Raritan meadows early in the season. If the year 

 is favorable, the early start will carry this dominance to mid-summer 

 or even through the summer. At the Barnegat Bay shore cantator 

 shares with sollicitans the early honors, but becomes steadily less 

 as the season advances, leaving sollicitans in almost sole possession. 

 At Atlantic City and Cape May I found no cantator during the 

 period when they were swarming further north, though the species 

 does occur there in small numbers throughout the summer. Mr. 

 Brakelev's records show that they must have bred on the Mullica 

 River marshes in greater numbers than sollicitans during the present 



'This statement refers to conditions as they appear to the casual observer. 

 As a matter of fact, both total lack of salinity and too high a degree of it 

 appear to inhibit the development of the early stages. 



