400 Transactions. 
Авт. 29.—Notes on the Mating-habits and Early Life-history of the 
Culicid Opifex fuscus Hutton. 
Ву Н. B. Кївк, M.A., F.N.Z.Inst., Professor of Biology, Victoria 
University College, Wellington. 
[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 26th October, 1921; received by Editor, 
3181 December, 1921; issued separately, 30th April, 1923.] 
coast, and it breeds in pools a little above high-water mark. These pools 
contain brackish water, in which there is generally an abundant growth 
that it is in full swing. Although nothing that quite corresponds to the 
swarming of many other mosquitoes takes place, the surface of the breeding- 
pools becomes dotted, often quite thickly, with males. They adopt a very — 
alert attitude, peering down into the water and often thrusting the head — 
below the surface to get a clearer view. Their object is to capture 098 
: The grip is usually secured on the frontal ridge, along 
which the puparium would split in a case of unaided emergence; but often — 
the grip is to one side of the ridge. In either case the puparium is rupture? — 
a little to one side of the ridge, and the anal forceps of the male rest upon = 
the thorax of the pupa, working backwards and extending the slit. In? . 
few cases the slit is greatly a EA 
efforts in this direction as soon as the head and part of the thorax are clear. - 
Emergence from this point j 
of the legs of the young imago, which rises slowly and steadily, pet : 
whole of the abdomen is clear. The ma® 
has kept the forceps in close contact with the body of the imago, two 01 
three segments of his abdomen being inside the puparium. If, as is usually 
the case, the imago is a female, connection is effected before her abdomen 18 = 
quite clear, and when emergence is complete copula has already begun. _ 
