488 



INSECTS 



POPULARLY CALLED 



MOSQUITO. 



of them as much as ever ; and the very first time he was unchained 

 we missed him, and the coachman asserted he saw the animal running 

 at a fast gallop along the road we came by into Ramsgate, and gave it 

 as his opinion he would run home. That day passed — another, and 

 another, and the dog returned not. We wrote to his former master, and to 

 our astonishment, received an answer from him, saying, that as he was 

 at breakfast, the dog all tired and exhausted, dirty and splashed, 

 rushed into his house, and seemed quite overjoyed to see him again, 

 having travelled alone, a distance of seventy-eight miles, and passed 

 the city of Canterbury and Maidstone, besides numerous smaller towns, 

 without a guide, to return to his former master : what renders it more 

 singular is, that a period of a month had elapsed since the time he 

 arrived at Ramsgate and his being at liberty. 

 Exmouth, Devon, Sept. 29th, 1833. 



ON THE SPECIES OF INSECT POPULARLY CALLED 



MOSQUITO. 



BY THE EDITOR. 



In Insect Miscellanies, I remarked that numerous species of insects 

 "are confounded under the common names of gnat and mosquito, 

 whereas M. Meigen enumerated more than a dozen European species of 

 gnat ( Culex') independent of other similar genera which, though readily 

 distinguished by naturalists, appear to common observers to be identi- 

 cal ; and hence it is probable, the foreign mosquitoes are also of several 

 species, though to common observers, they do not appear to differ from 

 the common gnat {Culex pipiens)." 



When I wrote the preceding passage I had no means at hand of 

 ascertaining the species termed Mosquito in foreign countries, either in 

 specimens or figures ; but I have just received from Vienna an excel- 

 lent German work which serves to confirm my conjecture; two very 

 different insects, belonging even to different genera, being indiscri- 

 minately called mosquito in Brazil*. The word indeed is a diminutive, 

 and literally signifies " little fly." It is worth remarking that neither of 

 the species alluded to, is the common gnat of Europe, though one is not 



* Braziliens vorzuglich liistlge Insecten. Von Dr. J. E. Pohl und V. Kollar 

 mit illumin. Kupfertafl. 4 to. Wien. 1832. 



