CHAPTER VI 



Blood-sucking Nematocera {continued) : PsychodidaB, 

 Chironomidse, Simuliidae 



Besides Mosquitoes three other families of Nematocera, 

 namely, the Psychodida, or Moth-like midges, the Chironomidce, 

 or Midges, and the Simuliidc2, have to be reckoned in the 

 census of blood-sucking flies. In the blood-suckers of all 

 these families the mouth-parts, like those of the female 

 mosquito, include mandibles and maxillae formed for cutting 

 and sawing, and the epipharynx is a dagger. So far as the 

 Simuliidce and the few blood-sucking Chironoinidcz are con- 

 cerned the habit seems to be peculiar to the female. 



Family PSYCHODID^ : Moth-like Midges. (Gr. x/n-x)? = moth 

 or butterfly ; e?^o? = form). 



The species of this family are small, sometimes minute, 

 midges having the body and wings thickly covered with hair, 

 amid which patches of scales may be interspersed. Their 

 resemblance to tiny moths is enhanced by the pose of the 

 wings, which, when at rest, are commonly — but not in the 

 blood-sucking Phlebotomus — sloped on either side of the body. 

 The wings are peculiar in their oval or lanceolate form, and in 

 their venation (Fig. 22). Owing to the facts that the veins 

 usually branch nearer to the root than to the tip of the wing, 

 that the cross-veins are inconspicuous and are also situated 

 near the root of the wing, and that the 2nd longitudinal 

 vein has three branches, the wings look as if they contained 

 nine or ten nearly parallel longitudinal veins without cross- 

 veins. The antennae are long, and their segments, which are 

 sixteen in number, usually are separated by deep constric- 



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