MOSQUITOES IX GENERAL 35 



enormous numbers in which mosquitoes occur, it is safe 

 to say that only an infinitesimal proportion of them ever 

 taste the blood of a warm-blooded animal. They have 

 been seen with their beaks inserted into juicy j^lants; 

 they have been observed sucking ripe fruit, watermelons, 

 and even boiled potatoes. There are in this country 

 great tracts of marshy lands into which warm-blooded 

 animals never find their way, and in which mosquitoes 

 are breeding in countless numbers. 



But they are not confined to plants and warm-blooded 

 animals. They attack other insects, although observa- 

 tions on this point are not common. Dr. H. A. Yeazie, 

 of New Orleans, informs me, however, that he has seen 

 mosquitoes stinging the Cicada, or " locust," as it is in- 

 correctly called, and also the soft skinned pupa of the 

 same insect. Dr. H. A. Hagen has recorded an observa- 

 tion where he saw a mosquito in the Northwest engaged 

 in feeding on the chrysalis of a butterfly. Cold-blooded 

 vertebrates are also attacked. Mr. J. Turner Brakeley, of 

 Hornerstown, N. J., writes that he has seen a black ter- 

 rapin surrounded by a swarm of mosquitoes, but that she 

 paid no attention to them, possibly because she was en- 

 gaged in egg-laying. Moreover, there are several in- 

 stances on record in which mosquitoes have been seen 

 puncturing the heads of young fish. That mosquitoes 

 suck the blood of birds is also well proven. In the course 

 of Koss's original observations in India with a malarial 

 disease of sparrows, he had no difliculty in inducing 

 mosquitoes to bite these ])irds, and a recent correspond- 

 ent of the Bdlfintore Sun nearly lost some pet canaries 



