

Feb., '06] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 67 



of disease-producing organisms deserves attention, and experi- 

 ments with it should be made. The length of time for a newly- 

 hatched larva to arrive at the pupal stage varies greatly with 

 the temperature and available food. A large number of larvae 

 observed by me in captivity died without pupating. Some 

 lived as long as seven weeks without entering the pupal stage. 

 Although their normal food is human blood yet they will, if care- 

 fully handled, bite any warm blooded animal which has been 

 shaved on the part of its body which touches the ground as it 

 lies down. As it bites animals with difficulty, I fed mine on a 

 native boy. Larvae kept without food die. 



Six new pupae were kept 29, 30 and 31 days before the imag- 

 ines escaped. The imagines which emerged from the puparia 

 in my experiment were in every case identical with those I had 

 kept in captivity and also with the specimens determined by 

 Mr. Austen. 



While I cannot claim to have actually seen every detail in 



the metamorphosis, yet the method used (breeding out under 



closed cages in previously heated sand) is guarantee against 



fallacy and precludes possible heterogenesis ; so that we may 



be assured that we have the full life-history of the fly, which 



may quite possibly be found to play no unimportant role in 



tropical pathology. I do not know (having been in Africa) 



whether or not additional work, completing the description of 



the metamorphosis of A. luteola has been published since the 



paper to which I have above referred. However, I publish 



this short record of my observation of the life history from 



imago to imago, since it will at least serve as a confirmation 



of any work on the subject that may have been done in the 



interim. 



■ «*» i 



Reverie of a Mosquito. — " It's a hard row to hoe, and for growling 

 this human race is the wonder of the universe. I've got to live as well 

 as the rest of 'em, but if I approach a victim and sing ere I bite, he 

 growls and swears he wouldn't mind it so much if I didn't sing ; then if I 

 steal upon him silently he complains that he was hit without warning. 

 And then when the doctors can't discover a fever germ they swear I'm 

 at the bottom of the whole business and have my picture taken and write 

 books about me and make national reputations at my expense. But it's 

 all right, I guess, and I reckon I'll pull through ; I'm really an aristocrat 

 in disguise and good blood flows in my veins— in fact the best in the 

 country." 



