30 LIFE AND HABITS OF DOMESTIC MOSQUITOS 



and only the strongest or the luckiest will survive to 

 the pupa stage. They will sink all considerations of 

 family ties in their desire to live ; the strong ones 

 will eat up their weaker brothers and sisters. In the 

 meantime, however, if the mother returns to lay some 

 more eggs, the first generation of children will devour 

 their step-brothers and sisters. It is extremely im- 

 probable that both broods had the same father- 

 male mosquitos live for only a few hours, or at most 

 two or three days; like silkworm moths, their lives 

 are just sufficient to ensure the perpetuation of their 

 species. 



It is interesting to watch this cannibalism. Put 

 some small mosquito larvae into a glass vase holding 

 a little clean filtered water. Look at it every day, 

 and note how the numbers of swimming insects 

 decrease, until at last only one or two full-grown 

 larvae remain to tell the tale ; but these are well fed 

 and swollen at the expense of their brethren they 

 have eaten them all. This cannibalism occurs only 

 as a last resource. 



Domestic mosquito larvae and pupae have many 

 enemies. Chief of these are the gold-fish. An orna- 

 mental garden fountain which contains gold-fish is 

 always clear of mosquitos ; the fish eat the eggs as 

 they are laid. But all fish do not eat mosquito larvae. 

 There is a domestic species of mosquito, Acartomyia 

 zamittii, that passes its larval metamorphosis in very 

 salt water, such as is found in the salt-pans on the 

 seashore at Malta, Beyrout, Smyrna, and on the 

 Mediterranean littoral generally. In the pools where 



