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. 
The large ends of the eggs are downward, and it is out 
of these that the larvee 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. 
