DIPTERA. 317 
Marangouins and Moustiques, or Musquetoes, the inhabitants, as in 
other countries, defend themselves from them by surrounding their 
beds with gauze, or a Mosquetoe-bar. The Laplanders remove 
them hy fire, and rubbing the exposed parts of their body with grease. 
These Insects also feed on the nectar of flowers. 
The female deposits her eggs on the surface of the water, and 
crossing her posterior legs near the anus, and slowly separating 
them as the ova are extruded, places them side by side, in a per- 
pendicular direction; the entire mass resembles a little bateau floating 
on that element. Each female lays about three hundred eggs in the 
course of the year. ‘These Insects frequently survive the most in- 
tense cold. Their larve swarm in the green and stagnant waters of 
ponds and ditches, particulary in spring, the period at which those 
females lay their eggs who have pissed through the winter. They 
suspend themselves on the surface of the water, in order to respire, 
with their heads downwards. They have a distinct rounded head, 
furnished with two (species of) antennz and ciliated organs, by the 
motion of which they draw alimentary matters within their reach; 
a thorax with tufts of hair; an almost cylindrical and elongated 
abdomen, much narrower than the anterior part of the body, divided 
into ten rings, of which the antepenultimate bears (above) the respi- 
ratory organ, and the last is terminated by radiating sete and ap- 
pendages. These larve are very lively, swim with considerable 
velocity, and dive from time to time, but soon return to the surface. 
After some changes of tegument, they then become nymphs, which 
still continue to move by means of their tail and its two terminal 
fins. These nymphs also remain on the surface of the water, but in 
a different position from that of the larve, their respiratory organs 
being placed on the thorax; they consist of two tubular horns. It 
is in the water also that the perfect Insect is developed. Its exuvize 
form a sort of board or resting place, which keeps it from submer- 
sion. All these metamorphoses occur in the space of three or four 
weeks, and several generations are produced in the course of the 
year. 
In the excellent work of M. Meigen on the Diptera of Europe, the 
genus Culex of the preceding authors is divided into three. The 
species, in which the palpi of the males are longer than the proboscis 
and those of the females are very short, form that of 
CULEX proper. 
C. pipiens, L.; De Geer, Insect., VI, xvii. Cinereous; abdo- 
men annulated with brown; wings immaculate *. 
Those in which the palpi of the males are as long as the proboscis 
form another subgenus, 
ANOPHELEs f. 
Those in which they are very short in both sexes compose an- 
other, the 
JEDES, Hoff. t 
* For the other species, see Meigen, Dipt., 1, 1; Macq., Dipt. du nord de la Fr., 
Tipulaires, p. 153. 
+ Ibid., J. 10; Macq., [bid., 162. 
? Ibid., I, 13. 
