GNAT. MUSQUITO. 417 



SECTION XI. 



Gnat. Musquito. 



Culex pipiens. Linn* 



The common gnat is produced from an aquatic larva of a very 

 singular appearance, and which, when first hatched from the egg*, 

 measures scarcely more than the tenth of an inch in length. In 

 the space however of fourteen days, it arrives at the length of 

 something more than half an inch. In this state the head is very 

 large, and furnished on each side with a pair of jointed processes 

 resembling antennae ; the thorix large and angular ; the body sud- 

 denly lessening from this part, and continuing of nearly equal 

 diameter to the tail, which is of an abruptly truncated figure, and 

 tipped with four foliaceous processes : before the setting on of the 

 tail is a long, tubular, projecting process, nearly at a right angle 

 from the abdomen, and terminating in a tubular opening, verged 

 by four ovate scales, two of which exceed the rest in size : the 

 whole animal is of a brownish colour, semitransparent, and beset 

 on each side the head, body, and tail, with large tufts of hair : its 

 motions are very lively, and are conducted with a kind of convul. 

 sive rapidity, in different direciions, and to a small distance at a 

 time. It feeds on the minute vegetables, and animal particles, 

 which it finds in plenty in the stagnant waters in which it resides ; 

 and, when arrived at its full growth, casts its skin, and com- 

 mences chrysalis, the aspect of which is hardly less singular than 

 that of the larva, the head and thorax appearing connate, and 

 exhibiting a large oval mass at the upper part of the animal, while 

 the whole body bends downwards beneath : the thorax is furnished 

 on each side with an upright short tube or spiracle, and it is from 

 these parts that the animal frequently hangs suspended from the 

 surface of the water : the tail is tipped with a pair of leaf-shaped 

 processes. This chrysalites, like the larva from which it proceeded, 



* The eggs of the gnat are deposited in close-set groupes of three or four 

 hundred together, and are very small, of a brown colour, and of a cylindri* 

 shane, with pointed tips : the whole groupe is placed on the surface of the 

 water, close to the leaf or stalk of some water-planf. 



-VOL. T. 21 



