121 



bands on the palpi of the male, in the banding of the legs, further there are some 

 smaller differences with regard to the nervature of the wings. Otherwise there is 

 full accordance between Theobald's description and the Danish specimens. Among 

 all other Danish mosquito larvae the larva of C. morsitans is distinguishable at the 

 first glance owing to the antennae, the sipho and the structure of pecten and comb. 

 It has already been described by MEIJERE (1911 p. 138), EDWARDS (1912 p. 261) 

 and later by SCHNEIDER (1914 p. 35) and ECKSTEIN (1919 p. 288); it is perhaps one 

 of our most remarkable mosquito larvae. 



Most probably the species is widely spread over the whole of Europe but it 

 is not very common in our country. 



I have hatched many hundreds of this species in my laboratory, especially 

 from larvae which have hibernated in my aquaria, most of them there gave ima- 

 gines in April; in nature they did not hatch before the latter part of May. Later 

 on in the course of the summer I gathered several flying specimens. Between these 

 specimens hatched in my laboratory in April May and those gathered in summer, 

 there were rather conspicuous differences. Those from April were smaller, only 

 about 6.5 mm, of a more brown colour, and with the bright scales almost white; 

 those from May and later were much larger, about 8 mm, almost as large as C. 

 annulatus and much darker. 



For a long time I thought that I had more than one species in the material. 

 As according to MEIJERE himself (1911 p. 142) and EDWARDS (1912 p. 262) C. fumi- 

 pennis Stephens is said to resemble T. morsitans very much, I particularly thought, 

 that this species was concealed in the material. More especially some specimens 

 found in August 1918 in an old house in the park at Dragsholm Castle differed 

 very much from the true C. morsitans owing to their more yellowish colour. Un- 

 fortunately all these specimens were old; the hair-coating of the thorax was almost 

 wanting, and that of the abdomen was inconspicuous; all the specimens were fe- 

 males. Mr. EDWARDS has been kind enough to look over my whole material, and 

 maintains that all specimens may be referred to the single species C. morsitans. 

 This view is strengthened by the fact that in the large larva material I have never 

 been able to find more than one larva type. According to MEIJERE and EDWARDS 

 the t\vo species are easily distinguishable in the larva stage, C. fumipennis having 

 five to six spines beyond the pecten. I have never found larva? with siphones of 

 this structure in Denmark. As the species however is found in Holland (MEIJERE) 

 in Scotland (EDWARDS 1912 p. 262) England (LANG 1920 p. 104) and in Germany (ECK- 

 STEIN 1919 p. 289) I suppose that further explorations will also reveal this species 

 in our country. LANG (1920 p. 104) maintains that the two species are almost in- 

 distinguishable from each other as imagines. He maintains that it "would be of 

 great interest to determine .... if these two species always bred true, and that they 

 were not one species with a dimorphic larva". 



Biology. C. morsitans has been studied regularly for more than three years 

 in a great many ponds, more especially those of Stenholtsvang, the Str0dam ponds, 



D. K. D. Vidensk. Selsk. Skr., naturvidensk. og rnathem. Afd. 8. Rsekke, VII, 1. }g 



