March, I902.] SmITH : LiFE-HlSTORY OF AeDES SMITHII. 11 



would undoubtedly die when the winter fairly set in. Mr. Brakeley 

 looked unconvinced ; but said nothing at the time. 



January 22, 1901, after a spell of bitter cold weather Mr. Brake- 

 ley sent me a jar of living larvae and a statement of how they had 

 been found frozen solid in the leaves of the pitcher plants. I'he ac- 

 count of my experiments with these larvas and the record of the early 

 breedings is given in Entomological News, Vol. XII, p. 153, for 1901. 

 It is also printed on pp. 83-90 of Dr. Howard's Mosquito book. 



This carries the life-history to the point when, under laboratory 

 conditions, I secured a few adults which I mistook for undersized, im- 

 mature Culex pungens. Later, Mr. C. W. Johnson determined a 

 specimen as Aedes fuscus and under that name the species is several 

 times referred to in the minutes of the meetings of the Feldmann 

 Social, published in the Entomological News. 



As the season progressed, Mr. Brakeley kept sending in larvae and 

 these matured in such numbers that I was able to supply material in 

 sufficient quantity to enable Mr. Coquillett to determine that instead 

 of Aedes fuscus we had a new species to deal with : one which will 

 have to descend to posterity as a member of the Smith family unless 

 perchance it proves to have been previously described. 



Mr. Brakeley kept a duplicate series of specimens under observa- 

 tion at Lahaway and his first pupa, from larvae thawed out of ice Feb- 

 ruary 17th, was obtained April i6th and became adult on the 26th. 

 This gives a period of 58 days in active larval life at an ordinary in- 

 door temperature, or 68 days if the pupal period is counted. Other 

 pu])se and adults developed and the pupal period ranged between 10 

 and 12 days. 



A small lot of specimens gathered April 7th, began pupating May 

 ist and these had an average pupal period of eight days. 



Altogether Mr. Brakeley sent me, prior to May ist some 15 to 20 

 lots of larvae, numbering many hundreds of specimens. All these 

 were kept in the original pitcher leaf water and this never became 

 foul. It recpiired the contents of from 40 to 75 pitchers to make a 

 full pint of liquid and the larvi^e numbered from 2 to 20 or more in 

 each leaf. Culture after culture was closed out during the summer ; but 

 though the conditions for all the larvae in a single jar were absolutely 

 the same, the rate of development varied in each individual. One 

 quart jar, containing nearly 200 larvae received in early March, de- 

 veloped adults throughout the summer aild this was not closed out un- 



