28 INSECTS AFFECTING DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 
Their aggravating habits have been recognized by describers in sweh 
Significant names as molestus, pungens, punctor, damnosus, excitans, 
excrucians, impatiens, implacabilis, provocans, etc., which may be taken 
as indicating that even a naturalist is capable of harboring resentment. 
_ Of the American species, Culex pungens has been studied in the Divi- 
sion of Entomology, and Dr. Howard has published in Circular No. 13, — 
second series, a brief statement of its life history, being a condensed 
statement of a fuller article published in Bulletin No. 4, of this series. 
The following quotation, however, with the beautiful figures which 
have been kindly placed at my disposal for this paper, will serve to 
give a clear idea of the habits upon which remedial measures must be 
based: 
The following statement concerning the life history of these insects is based upon 
a series of observations made in this Division upon the development of two summer 
generations of Culex pungens, one of our commonest and most widespread species. 
The writer has seen specimens of this insect from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, 
New York, Maryland, District of Columbia, Illinois, Minnesota, Kentucky, Nebraska, 
Louisiana, Georgia, and the Island of Jamaica, West Indies. No doubt it is also 
abundant in New Jersey. é 
Egg laying takes place at night. The eggs are deposited in boat-shaped masses 
on the surface uf the water, the number varying from 200 to 400 in each mass. The 
eggs may hatch in sixteen hours. The larv live beneath the surface of the water, 
coming to the top at frequent intervals to breathe. The larval state may be com- 
pleted in seven days; the pupal state may last only twenty-four hours. An entire 
generation in summer time, then, may be completed in ten days. This length of 
time, however, may be almost indefinitely enlarged if the weather be cool. There 
are, therefore, many generations in the course of a season, and the insect may breed 
successfully in a more or less transient surface pool of water. 
Mosquitoes hibernate in the adult condition in cellars and outhouses and under 
all sorts of shelter. The degree of cold makes no difference in successful hiberna- 
tion; mosquitoes are abundant in the arctic regions. 
PREVENTION AND REMEDY. 
That cattle and horses suffer a great amount of pain, and that there 
is actual loss to the stock owner from this source will scarcely be called 
in question by anyone familiar with the subject. These animals may 
often be seen with a flock of the pests flying around them or located on 
the body, their distended blood-red abdomens attesting their sangui- 
nary meal. This will be particularly noted where animals have been 
pastured in lowland or near thickets, where mosquitoes abound. That 
much can be done to abate this loss and pain is now well established, 
and the following extract from an article by Dr. L. O. Howard, who has 
done more than anyone else to call attention to these possibilities, will 
cover the question of remedies better than any summary of my own: 
Of remedies against mosquitoes in houses the best is a thorough screening of win- 
dows and the placing of nets about beds. If the insects are troublesome in sitting 
or sleeping rooms during the evening the burning of pyrethrum will so stupefy them 
as to make their presence unobjectionable. Pyrethrum for this purpose should be 
prepared by moistening the powder sufficiently to allow of its being roughly molded 
