10 
the observations by Mr. Schwarz, of this office, at Corpus Christi, 
Tex., could be practically duplicated by many persons. He showed 
that when the wind blows from any other direction than south ‘‘ hun- 
dreds of thousands of millions” of mosquitoes blow in upon the town. 
Great herds of hundreds of horses run before the mosquitoes in order 
to get to the water. With a change of wind, however, the mosquitoes 
blow away. Many regions, especially along the seacoast, have been 
actually rendered uninhabitable by the abundance of mosquitoes, and 
they have been a serious drawback to the settlement of many other- 
wise advantageous and fertile localities. 
Dr. Otto Lugger reports, on pages 216,217 of his annual report for 
1896 as entomologist to the Minnesota State Agricultural Experiment 
Station, an interesting series of observations to determine the number 
of mosquitoes which may be bred in an ordinary rain barrel. The 
observations were made at St. Anthony Park, Minnesota. On July 6, 
1896, the water in one barrel was filtered and was found to contain 
17,259 eggs, larve, and pupe. On July 22, 1896, by a similar proc- 
ess, 19,110 mosquitoes were counted. When we consider that at 
least twelve generations may breed in a summer it is obvious, from 
Dr. Lugger’s account, that a neighborhood may be well supplied 
from one neglected rain-water barrel. i 
Alaskan and other far northern mosquitoes.—Since the opening up 
of the gold fields in Alaska and the great influx of miners and traders, 
knowledge of the abundance and ferocity of the Alaskan mosquitoes 
has become widespread, and surveying parties from the United States 
Coast and Geodetic Survey and the United States Geological Survey 
in starting for Alaska for their summer’s work are in the habit of con- 
sulting this office for the best remedies for mosquito bites. Those 
who were in Alaska the preceding year always state that they never 
experienced or even imagined anything in the mosquito line quite equal 
to those found in our northern territory. Mr. W. C. Henderson, of 
Philadelphia, who spent some time in Alaska recently, writes: ‘* They 
existed in countless millions, driving us to the verge of suicide or 
insanity.” Nothing has as yet been published regarding the exact 
species found in Alaska, but Mr. Coquillett has determined Culex con- 
sobrinus and Culex impiger from specimens collected by Prof. Trevor 
Kincaid on the Harriman expedition of 1899. C. consobrinus was 
collected at Sitka June 16, and Yakutat June 21; and C. ¢mpiger was 
taken at Sitka June 16, Yakutat June 21, Virgins Bay June 26, and 
Popoff Island July 8- 16. 
That the knowledge of the existence of mosquitoes in boreal regions 
is not new is shown ee the quotation just made from Kirby and Spence, 
and in Bulletin No. 4 the writer mentioned some of the instances of 
record by arctic explorers, citing, for example, the narrative of C. F. 
Hall’s second arctic expedition, in which the statement is made that 
