20 MOSQUITOES OP NOKTH AMERICA 



are long, the dorsal and ventral ones often developed into several series of stellate 

 tufts. The breathing-tube is always present and presents considerable diversity 

 in shape and vestiture. The pecten is either absent or inconspicuous. The 

 apical orifice of the tube is small and the closing mechanism is not so highly 

 developed as in the eulicines. 



The pupae differ from those of all other Culicidse by the presence of ample 

 hair-tufts at the apical angles of the seventh and eighth abdominal segments. 

 The paddles are comparatively small and of irregular outline, never broad and 

 rounded, as in the eulicines. The color of the pupa is usually pale yellow, like 

 the larvas, although in some forms the dorsum is dark or marked with a dark 

 pattern. 



This tribe presents on the whole more specialization than the Culicini, and 

 we therefore place it first. It presents, it is true, many generalized characters, 

 and if one were to dwell upon these the decision might easily be reached to 

 place the group last. It is, however, compact, its members agree in structure 

 and in life-habits ; they are separated by a considerable discontinuous interval 

 from the Corethrinae, from which the Culicini more naturally lead up. We 

 therefore begin with this group, not desiring to interpolate it between the 

 Culicini and Corethrinse, the only other possible position. 



The Sabethini are essentially of tropical distribution, only one species, Wye- 

 omyia smithii Coquillett, extending the range of the tribe into temperate lati- 

 tudes. The larvas inhabit the water collected in plants, usually between leaves 

 or the bracts of flowers, more rarely that in the hollows of trees ; in some cases 

 the amount of fluid is very scant and of a thick or gummy nature, apparently 

 secreted by the plant. The eggs are generally laid upon the young or still dry 

 leaves, and do not hatch until the advent of water. The detailed habits, so far 

 as known, will be described under the separate species. Certain of the larvae 

 are predaceous, generally upon members of their own tribe. 



Members of this tribe were flrst recognized by F. V. Theobald, who in 1901 

 defined the first genera in which the presence of setae on the postnotum was used 

 as a diagnostic character. He did not segregate them into a separate group, 

 as he dwelt more particularly on the differences in length of the palpi and other 

 less important or sexual characters; however, in his original table of genera 

 (Mon. Culicid., i, pp. 97-98, 1901) his section A corresponds to the Culicini as 

 here treated, his sections B and C together to the Sabethini, and his section D to 

 the Corethrinae. This classification approached the one at present adopted by us. 

 Mr. Theobald, however, never elaborated it upon this basis, but departed from 

 it, and in his fourth volume adopts a distinctly inferior system, in which the 

 character of the setae upon the postnotum is obscured, and the mosquitoes are 

 divided into no less than 10 " subfamilies," based upon characters of no more 

 than generic value. Adolpho Lutz was the first to unite the forms of this group 

 (under the name Metanototrichae) , but in too subordinated a manner. He again 

 subdivided them into two groups on the length of the male palpi, HeteropalpjB 

 and Micropalpae. Theobald had already, in 1901, established a subfamily 

 (Trichoprosoponina) for the forms in which scales are present on the post- 



