1718 
DIPTERA 01^ AUSTRALIA, 
synonymous with Culex, while Plettusa, a genus formed V>y 
Philippi (V. z-b. G. Wien, 1865, p. 597, taf. xxiii, fig. 2) 
for the reception of some South American insects which that 
author referred to this family, is regarded by Baron Osten-Sacken 
as identical with Geranomyia of the Tipulidm (Mon. Dipt. N. 
America, Part IV., Tipulidae, 1869, p. 79). 
These insects have a cosmopolitan range ; only Mochlonyx, with 
two or three species, appears at present to be confined to Eui’ope, 
but it has possibly been overlooked in other countries. The 
brilliant species belonging to Megarrhina, although few in number, 
are widely scattered, being represented in North and South 
America, the West Indies, North and South Asia, the Eastern 
Isles, and in Australia. The typical genus Culex, comprising the 
true mosquitoes, has a world-wide dissemination, and includes some 
160 described species ; in Europe from extreme north to south 
about 30 species are known, and the same number are recorded from 
both North and South America, of which one species, C. annulatm, 
is common to the former two continents ; two species stand 
I’ecorded from Mexico and an equal number from the West 
Indies. In Southern Asia and the Eastern Isles about 25 species 
are known to occur, eleven have been named from Africa, four 
have been discovered in New Zealand, and in the present contri- 
bution no less than 21 are recorded for Australia. One species 
appears to have been introduced into this country, judging from 
the accounts of old colonists, and is possibly a variety of G. 
ciliaris, Linm It may have been imported from Europe in the 
water-tanks belonging to some of the old sailing vessels. As the 
I’ailway lines extend so this mosquito reaches portions of the 
country often hitherto exempt from it, and it has been, and is 
being, communicated to other places along the coasts by 
water traffic. Certain descriptions in Meigen’s and Macquart’s 
works fit this species fairly well as far as they go, but are 
much too brief and unsatisfactory to be of much service for 
conclusive identification ; and none of the more modern works 
giving descriptions of Culicidse being available to me, I have been 
compelled to simply give the description of this species without 
