MOSQUITOES. 85 



common form is pipiens of Linnseus. a name, suggested by the constant 

 piping produced during its flight by the rapid stroke of its narrow wings, 

 which are said to vibrate three thousand times a minute. 



A large number of species have been described and named by different 

 authors—- 30 are given to America, 35 to Europe, and 100 to the rest of the world. 



Mr. P. W. Urich, in a paper read before the Trinidad Field Naturalist's 

 Club, says : " So far as Trinidad is concerned, I may say I have observed at 

 least ten different kinds of mosquitoes, varying in size and colour, and the bite 

 of some of them is far from being pleasant." But, as in other departments 

 of natural history, species have been created upon very slight differences, 

 the probability is that many of those so-called " species" are but local varia- 

 tions of one species. Yet certain it is, very considerable difference in size 

 is to be observed in the same locality, but as all creatures are given to vary 

 in size, the same liberty may be allowed to Culex pipiens. Whether the bite 

 of the large ones is severer than that of small ones does not seem to have 

 been specially observed, but personal experience corroborates the statement 

 that all bites are not equally sharp. 



The name " Mosquito " is a Spanish term, signifying " little fly," and would 

 probably be applied to any biting winged insect, regardless of structure, by 

 the Spaniards who first landed on the continent. And those of them that 

 returned to their own country would relate stories of suffering they had to 

 encounter and endure from their tiny foes, which were of more than Aztec 

 ferocity and tenacity. Even yet extraordinary tales are told of the size 

 and savage nature of the mosquitoes of some localities over those of others. 

 The fame of the New Jersey breed and the Mississippi gallinipper has gone 

 far abroad, but I suspect that the principle cause of suffering in one locality 

 over another is to be attributed to numbers, rather than to any difference 

 in the size of the insects. Travellers have recorded their experience with 

 mosquitoes in all parts of the world ; some declaring that those of the Arctic 

 regions are the worst they ever encountered ; but South America, from its 

 climatic conditions, and its low-lying lands, which are frequently flooded, 

 is in a position to carry off the prize against the world for its crop of mos- 

 quitoes, and that the early travellers there were duly impressed with this 

 fact is evidenced by the names given to places such as the Mosquito Coast, 

 Mosquito Bay, and Mosquito Town. In ancient history we read of armies 

 on the march being arrested on the way and made to beat a hasty retreat 

 from the attack of these tiny warriors, which is quite believable ; for if we 

 take into consideration the scant and loose covering which they probably 

 wore, which gave the wearers so much more space to defend, they were not 

 in a condition to pursue human foes when every man of them was engaged in 

 a double-handed conflict with such pertinacious insect enemies. 



There is a prevalent opinion in Europe that mosquitoes are an exclusively 

 American production, and in England especially it is the general belief. We 



