32 



THE AMERICAN MONTHLY 



[February, 



The Mosquito. 



Mr. J- L. De La Cour read the fol- 

 lowing interesting account of the mos- 

 quito at a meeting of the Camden Mi- 

 croscopical Society, in December last. 

 Although to most readers the theme 

 may seem out of season, to residents 

 of New Jersey it may be different. 

 He said : — 



The mosquito is a singularly un- 

 pleasant insect in a room, but it is 

 marvellously beautiful under the mi- 

 croscope, and should be examined 

 with a succession of powers, so as 

 to gain its beauties of detail by de- 

 grees. The antenna of the male is a 

 wondrously beautiful object ; there 

 are 14 joints, each finished with a 

 whorl of long hair. The antenna of 

 the female has the hair so short as to 

 be invisible without the aid of a lens ; 

 the wings, beak, and limbs are gen- 

 erally studded with scales, which give 

 to the insect a splendor of coloring 

 which cannot be appreciated without 

 the microscope, when they blaze out 

 in a magnificence rivalling the fabled 

 glories of Aladdin's palace. 



We must bear in mind that though 

 both sexes partake of this splendid 

 apparel, the male does not possess the 

 piercing lancets with which the female 

 is armed. The male mosquito is, in 

 fact, harmless. Life is absolutely ren- 

 dered a burden by these tiny insects in 

 countries where their numbers are 

 multiplied by the millions, and the 

 venom of their bite is increased ten- 

 fold where they assume to themselves 

 the mastery of the section in which 

 they live. Their habitat is world 

 wide, and no amount of thick cloth- 

 ing in many instances could defend 

 us from their attacks. 



Their visible proboscis is not the 

 sting itself, but the scabbard enclosing 

 the instruments for piercing the skin 

 and sucking our blood. There are 

 five lancet-like bristles with a hook in 

 the end, which are left on the arm if 

 the insect be driven away suddenly 

 and cause greater pain and inflamma- 

 tion than if allowed to be withdrawn 

 by the insect when it has ceased suck- 



ing. The itching sensation and swell- 

 ing of the insignificant puncture is 

 then caused by the venomous saliva, 

 which is discharged from the sting 

 for the purpose probably of diluting 

 the blood. We see the same thing 

 when flies drop some liquid on a lump 

 of sugar in order to dissolve it, that 

 they may the better suck it up. This 

 saliva therefore performs the same 

 office as that of mammals when mas- 

 ticating their food. 



Mosquitoes deposit their eggs in stag- 

 nant water, about 300 at a time, which 

 are multiplied by those of six or seven 

 generations in one season. Their im- 

 mense number would give us much 

 trouble in every section of the country 

 were they not the favorite food of 

 many birds (particularly of swal- 

 lows) , as well as dragon flies and 

 other insects. If we reflect for a mo- 

 ment on the fact that of about one 

 hundred eggs laid by the dragon fly, 

 perhaps only one pair survive, and 

 that the remaining 98 young have af- 

 forded food to insects of other species, 

 we can form an idea of the amount of 

 food required from the larval state to 

 the winged state, and be impressed 

 with the fact that the majority of in- 

 sects are born to serve as food for the 

 few that survive. 



The eggs are of an oval form per- 

 pendicularly glued together in masses 

 of a shape resembling that of the life- 

 boat now in use, and like it cannot be 

 sunk, and if capsized rights itself 

 again immediately. They are at first 

 white but become green after a few 

 hours and afterward gray. Li about 

 three or four days the egg is hatched 

 and the larva pushes oft' the lower end 

 of the egg, which opens like a circu- 

 lar trap door, and allows it to float off 

 into the water and become one of the 

 wigglers which we see. The head 

 and thorax are so large and bulky that 

 it cannot ascend and lie motionless in 

 a horizontal position, but hangs head 

 downward, and breathes by means of 

 a spiracle lodged in one of the large 

 tubes into which the end of the body 

 subdivides, the position of the tube be- 



