WASPS CAPTURING MOSQUITOES 171 
northernmost Sweden, records two species of Empidide (Hormopeza obliterata 
and Tachydromia macula), and a species of Scatophagide (Cordilura hemor- 
rhoidalis) as active enemies of mosquitoes. We give a free translation of his 
interesting account: 
“Tt is well known that when animals collect in large numbers—as for example 
lemmings or grasshoppers migrating from one locality to another—they are 
attacked by numerous predaceous enemies; the lemmings by foxes and birds 
of prey—the grasshoppers by various birds. Similar conditions are found with 
the enormous swarms of Culex, as well as with those of Simulia and Cera- 
topogon. 
“T have already communicated to this Academy my observations on one of 
the predaceous enemies of mosquitoes, Tachydromia macula, which catches its 
prey by the help of its specially adapted front legs. 
“ Not less agile and voracious enemies of the mosquitoes are two other small 
predaceous flies Cordilura hemorrhoidalis and Hormopeza obliterata, which 
even come inside the tents of the Lapps in order to catch the mosquitoes there. 
“ Of the Hormopeza, which Prof. Zetterstedt only found in one example and 
of which Prof. Boheman has since found also but one male, I found in great 
numbers of both sexes near the river Sidosjocki on the Ounastunturi mountain 
while I visited a Lapp house there. I had first occasion to observe them inside 
the house, where they flew about catching such gnats as had gained entrance in 
spite of the continuous smoke. As I previously had noticed great swarms of 
gnats outside, over the top of the cabin, I went out to seek the Hormopeza there 
and found them in great numbers. They continued preying upon the gnats far 
into the night and were found in company with the above mentioned Cordilura.” 
Paul Combes has observed that in the island of Anticosti freshly emerged 
mosquitoes were attacked and killed by another blood-sucking dipteron, Simu- 
lium, which is a great plague in that region. 
A male of a very common and widely distributed predaceous fly, Scatophaga 
stercorarius has been found by Claude Morley sucking one of the non-biting mos- 
quitoes (Corethinz) and presumably does not discriminate against the biting 
ones. 
Two species of wasps have been observed to prey upon adult mosquitoes. 
Charles Ferton, in the Annals of the Entomological Society of France for 
1901 (p. 113), states that, at Bonifacio in Corsica, a specimen of Crabro quadri- 
maculatus was captured carrying an incompletely paralyzed male of Culex to 
its nest, and states that it is probable that this little wasp also captures Anoph- 
eles, and so merits esteem in a malarial country. 
Mr. H. J. Browne, of Washington, at Calapatch Island, 70 miles south of 
Batabano, Cuba, and 30 miles east of the Isle of Pines, found the large wasp, 
Monedula signata, in great numbers. They seemed to make their practical diet 
on the yellow-fever mosquito, which they seized upon the wing and devoured in 
large numbers. Mr. Browne says that he has seen one of these wasps seize and 
devour upon the wing 20 mosquitoes in the space of five minutes. Bates, in his 
“ Naturalist on the River Amazon,” states that this particular wasp is an enemy 
of the motuca fly (a tabanid, Lepiselaga), and that one of the wasps captured a 
motuca from his (Bates’) neck and carried it off to its burrow. 
