THE COMMON MOSQUITO 89 



water itself. Just how they do this I am not prepared to say. 

 One thing may be considered as certainly established by this 

 series of observations : the insect can and does hibernate in the 

 larval stage, if this is not, indeed, the prevailing method. Mr. 

 Brakeley has scoured the swamps for miles about within the last 

 few weeks, and wherever he found pitcher plants almost or quite 

 every leaf had its supply of wrigglers. It is not, therefore, a local 

 phenomenon. Nor is it even suggested that pitcher plants alone 

 furnish breeding-places where the larva? hibernate ; but they are 

 remarkably safe resorts, protected to a very marked extent from 

 natural enemies. Is there any relation between plant and insect, 

 whereby the plant receives a benefit? Do the wrigglers in any 

 way prevent a foulness of the water from the insect fragments 

 until the plant has absorl^ed what it needs? 



It is noticeable that during the whole winter only a single ex- 

 ample of Culex piingens was taken in the barns, storehouses, or 

 cranberry-sorting rooms, though they were diligently sought. 

 Anopheles punctipennis were found quite abundantly — between 

 twenty and thirty specimens having been taken on the windows 

 of the sorting rooms ; but no Anopheles larvae were found in any 

 of the collected leaves. As a Jerseyman, Mr. Brakeley ordinarily 

 pays little attention to mosquitoes, but he could not easily over, 

 look Anopheles, did it occur in any numbers in summer. He 

 says that it does not, and that he has never seen as many during 

 his years of residence in the Pines as he did this past winter. 



My own experience is similar. I remember that about three 

 years ago I was annoyed by Anopheles very early in the year in 

 my store-room in the basement of the Station Building. Later 

 on I saw nothing of them, and I can say positively that the spe- 

 cies of this genus form no part of the often consideral)le swarms 

 in and near New Brunswick. 



In the cellar of my residence I took Chdex pnngem, female, 

 March 22d, fiving. It could not well have developed there, and 



