IX 



H()}r to Collect and Preserve Mosquitoes 



Including- an Account of How to Raise Mosquitoes and 

 Study the Earl}^ Stages. 



ADULT mosquitoes are very fragile creatures. Tlie 

 scales upon tlieir bodies and legs are easily rubbed 

 off, and the antennae, and especially the legs, break 

 with the least handling-. Even in their ordinary course of 

 life the scales rub off, and with certain species an adult 

 which is two or three weeks old is quite different in ap- 

 pearance from one which has just emerged from the pupa. 

 Practically, they can not be handled Avith the fingers, or 

 their value as cabinet specimens or as specimens for study 

 is lost. With some forms there are important charac- 

 ters in the arrangement of the scales on the thorax. AVith 

 others the scales on the Aving are of importance and if 

 the front legs are accidentall}^ broken oft', an important 

 character to which I have referred in the systematic por- 

 tion of this book as existing in the claws of the fore feet, 

 is naturally unavailable. In capturing them, therefore, 

 they must not be handled, and I have found the most sat- 

 isfactory method of capture to consist in simply placing 

 a small, open-mouthed vial over the mosquito while at 



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