316 INSECTA. 
at almost every season of the year. In coitu they are united end to 
_end, and frequently fly in that position. Some of the females commit 
their ova to the water; others deposit them in the earth or on plants. 
The larve, always elongated and resembling worms, have a squa- 
mous head, always of the same shape, the mouth of which is furnished 
With parts analogous to maxille and lips. They always change their 
skin to become nymphs. The latter, sometimes naked, and sometimes 
enclosed in cocoons constructed by the larve, approximate in their 
figure to the perfect Insect, present their external organs, and com- 
plete their metamorphosis in the usual manner. They have fre- 
quently, near the head or on the thorax, two organs of respiration, re- 
sembling tubes. This family is composed of the genera Culez, and 
Tipula of Linnzus. 
Some, in which the antenne are always filiform, as long as the tho- 
rax, densely pilose, and composed of fourteen joints, have along, pro- 
jecting, filiform proboscis, containing a piercing sucker, consisting of 
five sete *. They constitute the genus 
Cutex, Lin.—Cuuicines, Lat., 
Or the Mosquetoes, where the body and legs are elongated and airy; 
the antennz densely pilose, the hairs forming tufts in the males; the 
eyes large and closely approximated or convergent at their posterior 
extremity; the palpi projecting, filiform, hairy, as long as the probos- 
cis, and composed of five joints in the males, shorter and apparently 
with fewer articulations in the females. The proboscis is composed 
of a membranous, cylindrical tube, terminated by two lips, forming a 
little button or inflation, and of a sucker consisting of five squamous 
threads, which produce the effect of a sting. The wings are laid ho- 
rizontally, one over the other, on the body, with little scales. 
The torment we experience from these Insects, particularly in the 
vicinity of low grounds and water, where they are most abundant, is 
well known. Thirsting for our blood, they pursue us everywhere, 
penetrate into our dwellings, particularly in the evening, announce 
their presence by a peculiarly sharp hum, and pierce our skin with 
the fine setee (dentated at the extremity) of their sucker; in propor- 
tion as they sink them into the flesh, the sheath bends towards the 
pectus, and forms an elbow. They distil a venomous fluid into the 
wound, which is the cause of the irritation and swelling experienced 
from their attacks. It has been remarked that we are only persecuted 
by the females. In America, where they are known by the names of 
* They have been well represented by Reaumur and Roffredi. The figure given by 
M. Robineau Desvoidy, in his Essai sur la tribu des Culicides—Mem. de la Soc. 
d’Hist Nat., III, 390—conveys a wrong idea of the disposition of these sete. This 
writer has promulgated an opinion relative to the correspondence of these parts with 
their sheath, almost diametrically the reverse of that which is generally received. 
Had he reflected that two of these sete, in the Syrphi and other Diptera, are an- 
nexed to the palpi, he would not haye taken them fer mandibles, but considered them 
as analogous to jaws 
