IV. Family CULICIDJE. 



Slender flies, for the most part characterized by the 

 projecting, slender proboscis and the thickly plumose 

 antennae of the males. Head small, subspherical ; eyes 

 reniform; ocelli wanting. Antennae slender, elongate, 

 composed of fourteen or fifteen joints; first joint globose, 

 the following elongated, nearly or quite cylindrical and 

 beset with whorls of hair, forming, with but few excep- 

 tions, in the male a dense plumosity, but shorter and 

 less conspicuous in the female; in the male the last two 

 joints almost always more elongated and nearly bare. 

 Thorax ovate, arched, but not projecting over the head, 

 without transverse suture; scutellum narrow, uui- or 

 trilobate; metauotum usually arched. Abdomen long 

 and narrow, somewhat flattened, composed of eight or 

 nine segments; male genitalia prominent; ovipositor 

 short. Legs long and slender; coxae not elongate ; tarsi 

 long; claws often denticulate, especially in the males. 



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'$"- vein 



Fig. 28. Venation <>f Culex. 



Wings long and narrow, while at rest lying flat over 

 the abdomen; with six fully developed longitudinal 

 veins reaching the costal margin; the hind margin is 



96 



