CULICIDiE: CULICALES, MEGALORRHINI, ETC. 97 



those forms where both sexes are known the palpi are short 

 in the female and long in the male. Of no direct importance 

 to the medical officer, but the larvae of Psorophora are said to 

 be highly predaceous. 



(f) Genera of the MUCIDUS Type. — The head is shaggy 

 with upstanding scales of different kinds, among which either 

 coarse sickles, or broad darts, or somewhat fan-shaped scales 

 are predominant or, at least, conspicuous. The wings are 

 either speckled or mottled, or they may be spotted — in field, 

 costa, and fringe — much like those of a Nyssorhynchus ; the 

 legs also as a rule are much mottled, brindled, or banded. 

 The wing-scales are either broadly leaf-like, or broadly 

 subtriangular, or shaped somedeal like the front wing of 

 a butterfly. The palpi may be long in both sexes {e.g. in 

 Mucidus and Orthopodoniyid), or short in both sexes {e.g. in 

 j^dimyia), or long in the male and shortish in the female 

 {e.g. in Mansonid). The mosquitoes of this group seem to 

 link the Culicales with the Epialurgi, and are on that account 

 worthy of investigation in respect of the transmission of 

 malaria. 



(g) Forms annectant between CuLEX and SxEGOMYlA and 

 .(Edes. — Though other kinds of scales are present — often 

 localised — on the head, the predominant scales of the head 

 are squames, which, though they overlap, do not lie flat. The 

 scales of the scutellum are either sickles only, or sickles 

 mingled with squames. The palpi are as a rule short in the 

 female and long in the male, but may be {Eumelanomyza) 

 shorter than the proboscis in the male, or {Bancroftid) about 

 a third the length of the proboscis in the female. 



The species of Culicales which at present are known to 

 have any particular pathogenic importance belong to the 

 Culex, Stegomyia, and Mucidus groups, and will be considered 

 severally in the sequel (p. 107). 



In the Culex group the very common tropical and sub- 

 tropical house-mosquito, C. fatigans, is important as one of 

 the prevalent intermediate hosts of the larva of Filaria 

 bancrofti. It is also said to carry the infection of dengue. 



In the Stegomyia group S.fasciata is, probably, by reason 

 of its very wide distribution, its domestic habits, and the 



G 



