FOOD DIFFERENCE OF SEXES 113 
flower-visitors the females suck blood. In these hematophagous females the 
nectar of flowers may be considered as a supplementary food which prevents 
starvation when blood is not available. With the males nectar appears to be 
the natural food. It is hardly to be supposed that species of mosquitoes limit 
themselves to particular flowers, nor is there any structural modification that 
would indicate adaptation to certain flowers, such as exist, for example, in the 
flower-visiting Hymenoptera. The great diversity of flowers visited by mos- 
quitoes bears this out. With the mosquitoes it is probably merely a question of 
easy accessibility of the nectar and also of the season in which a particular 
species of mosquito makes its appearance. As the appearance of many species of 
mosquitoes is regulated by conditions of rainfall which vary from year to year, 
the flowers available to a given species can not always be the same. 
“. . . In conclusion I wish to place on record an observation on Megarhinus 
septentrionalis D. & K., our largest mosquito. On July 14 of this year I found 
a female of this species at Glen Carlyn, Virginia, probing for honey upon a cyme 
of Hydrangea arborescens L. The mosquitoes of the genus Megarhinus are so 
rare that very little is known of their habits, but it appears quite certain that 
they do not attack animals, indeed, their proboscis is unfit for piercing the skin. 
Probably they feed wholly upon the nectar of flowers, but as they are very rare, 
even in their proper home—the tropics, and withal very shy, it is not strange 
that they have escaped observation.” 
It-is worthy of note that Réaumur fed Culex upon syrup and believed 
that the greater part of them are contented with a diet of the sap of plants. 
Mosquitoes have been observed to come to exposed honey in large numbers. 
There is a decided difference in the food of the male and female of most 
mosquitoes. Goeldi, referring to this difference, says: 
“ A curious phenomenon is the difference in the methods of alimentation be- 
tween the mosquitoes of the male and female sexes. The former out of doors 
seek ripe fruit and flowers, and when they visit our houses frequent the sugar 
basin, coffee, tea, wine, soups, the cups and saucers and plates of our tables—all 
sweet substances in a word—abstaining as a rule from drinking blood. The 
females, participating up to a certain point in this diet, are at the same time 
addicted to the vice of blood-sucking. They are blood-suckers by choice, which 
harms us, and it is chiefly against them that our hatred, the result of despera- 
tion, is directed.” 
Making experiments in this direction he found that out of thirty-seven mos- 
quitoes captured in a sugar-bow! there were one female and one male of Aédes 
calopus and two females and thirty-three males of Culex quinquefasciatus, 
whereas, crushing, with one blow of his hand, a number of mosquitoes trying 
to enter a mosquito bar, he found that he had killed twenty-three specimens of 
Culex quinquefasciatus, all of which were females. 
Goeldi also calls attention to the attraction which perspiration has for the 
yellow-fever mosquito, both males and females, and shows that males often alight 
upon the skin and drink the perspiration. He believes that the biting mosquitoes 
were originally attracted by perspiration and that the females have developed 
into blood-drinkers while the males have preserved the original condition. It 
may be that the few reported cases in which males have been supposed to bite 
are based upon a faulty deduction, males being seen in a biting position but 
only drinking the perspiration and perhaps slightly irritating the skin. 
