'3 
Family 
CHIRONOMID/E 
Midges. 
Although these insects are by far the smallest of all blood-sucking 
flies, the pertinacity and blood-thirstiness of some species of midges is 
such that, in the British Islands at any rate, they cause much more 
discomfort and annoyance to human beings than the species of any 
other family mentioned in this book ; and, during the spring and 
summer months, in the evening hours when they are most active, their 
presence often constitutes a serious drawback to life in the country. 
Occasionally midges occur locally in such numbers as to amount to a 
veritable plague. With reference to a species, at present un- 
determined, which abounds in Scotland, Colonel Yerbury writes : 
" This insect is a great pest in the Highlands ; it collects in large 
numbers on one's knickerbocker stockings, and the bites cause the 
skin to look as if covered with a severe rash." It should be pointed out 
that the majority of the species of midges are perfectly harmless. The 
British blood-sucking forms belong to the genus Ceratopogon {sens, lat.), 
which is distributed throughout the world, and of which we have some 
fifty indigenous species. Only a few of these, however, are known to 
suck blood, and the habit is confined to the female sex. As in the 
gnats or mosquitoes (Culicida;), the wings when at rest are carried flat, 
closed one over the other like the blades of a pair of scissors ; in 
many species (as in the two selected for illustration) they are minutely 
hairy, and they are often speckled with greyish brown blotches. The 
sexes can be distinguished owing to the possession by the males of 
tufted antenna; and a more elongated shape. As a general rule the 
larvae of naked-winged species of Ceratopogon are aquatic, those of 
hairy-winged species terrestrial. The eggs of aquatic species are laid 
in floating algse, in star-shaped clusters containing from one hundred 
to one hundred and fifty. The larva; of these species are whitish 
worm-like creatures, with long narrow heads ; they live in the masses 
of Conferva; floating on the surface of stagnant pools and ditches, and 
progress with a serpentine motion. The larva; of the hairy-winged 
