150 MOSQUITOES 



and urged to send on living- specimens in water, and to en- 

 deavor to rear the adult. It was then, however, unfor- 

 tunately^, too late. He Avrote that during- the summer a 

 small creek and some earth ponds on his place became 

 entirely dry, in consequence of which all fish in them 

 died. Some time in August there was a sufficient rainfall 

 to fill a few of the deepest places, which soon after be- 

 came almost alive with mosquito larvne. These were used 

 for fish-food, until it was noticed that they were develop- 

 ing to the pupa stage, when coal oil was immediately 

 poured on the water. It was while the coal oil was be- 

 ing applied that the big larv?e and pupie were first no- 

 ticed. Mr. Seal had been a collecting naturalist for 

 twentj-six years, supplying material for the aquarium 

 and for biological research, and had discovered some low 

 forms of life new to science, which were described by 

 Leidy and Eyder, but in all his experience he had never 

 seen such large mosquito larvae. 



On being assured of the novelty and importance of his 

 observation, he promised to watch for the subsequent 

 appearance of similar larvae, and on September 20th 

 found other specimens which appeared after a rain which 

 occurred on September 15th or a little before. Mr. 

 Seal was able to distinguish between them and the 

 Culex larvae, and wrote that they were very scarce — per- 

 haps one of them to many thousands of the others. On 

 September 25th additional larvae and pupae were sent 

 in, and from these specimens the accompanjdng illustra- 

 tions were made. 



The larva is structurally of great interest. On com- 



