CULICID^ : CULICALES, MEGALORRHINI, ETC. 95 



the length of the proboscis; in HylecoRtomyia the female 

 palpi are very short and the male palpi are decidedly shorter 

 than the proboscis; in Mimomyia the female palpi are very 

 short and those of the male are about two-thirds the length 

 of the proboscis ; and in ^des the palps are quite short in 

 both sexes. 



The wings in the great majority of species are not spotted, 

 but there are numerous species in which they are finely 

 speckled, not a few in which they are coloured and mottled ; 

 and there are some in which they are distinctly spotted 

 quite like an Anopheles, or even like a Myzomyia or a Nysso- 

 rhynchus. 



The larva has a breathing-tube, and the lateral thoracic 

 and abdominal hairs of the larva are not feathered. 



Some recent writers on mosquitoes have broken the 

 Culicales in pieces like a potter's vessel. A multitude of 

 " genera," not to speak of " subfamilies," have been proposed, 

 much after the arbitrary method of Procrustes. In the 

 following synopsis I have merely taken the genera proposed 

 by the experts, and have grouped them mainly according to 

 the character of the scales on the several regions of the body 

 — a method which was discovered and first made use of by 

 Theobald. I do not, however, consider that all these genera 

 are valid ; and the " subfamilies " appear to me to be entirely 

 artificial. 



For the sake of brevity, "narrow curved scales" are 

 referred to as " sickles," " upright forked scales " as " darts," 

 and broad flat overlapping scales as " squames." 



Synopsis of Culicales. 



(a) Genera of the CULEX Type. — Three kinds of scales — 

 none of them specially predominant — are found on the head, 

 namely, sickles and darts (the latter often most abundant 

 posteriorly) on the crown, and overlapping squames on the 

 cheeks. The scales of the scutellum are usually sickles, but 

 in a few forms squames are also present, and very rarely 

 squames alone. The wing-scales are usually long and 

 narrow, but may be elliptical or obliquely spatulate. In a 

 few species the wings are spotted as in Anopheles maculipennis, 



