296 NATURAL HISTORY. 



sect will be plunged into the water before it expands its 

 wings. 



503. The eggs of the Musquito are deposited on the 

 surface of stagnant water to the number of about three 

 hundred, fastened together as you see in Fig. 229. They 

 thus make a sort of raft which swims on the surface. 



Fig. 229. 



The large ends of the eggs are downward, and it is out 

 of these that the larvae come, diving down into the wa- 

 ter. There is a lid at the blunt end of the egg which is 

 opened to let the larva out. Some species do not have 

 this mode of arranging their eggs. 



504. The proboscis which is visible to us, and which 

 the insect so deliberately adjusts upon the skin when it 

 alights, is not the stinging apparatus, but the sheath or 

 scabbard of it. It incloses some bristles with lancet- 

 shaped points. When the skin is pierced by these, the 

 blood is sucked up through the sheath. It is supposed 

 that the irritation attending the bite is occasioned by the 

 saliva of the insect introduced into the wound to dilute 

 the blood that it may more readily be sucked up. In 

 Fig. 230 you have at A the sheath closed, both of the 

 natural size and magnified. In the lower figure you have 

 the whole instrument opened at B the sheath, at C 

 three lancets, and at D protectors. At F you see these 

 parts of their natural size. This is the arrangement of 

 the proboscis of the common American Musquito. It is 

 different, however, in the different species of this insect. 



505. The different species of Musquitoes, of which 

 there are many, are quite widely diffused in the earth. 



