276 
YAfilOUS SPECIES OP MOSQUITOS. 
lie desired us to look at his legs, “ that we might he able to 
tell one day, beyond sea (por alia), what the poor monKs 
suffer in the forests of Cassiquiare.” Every sting leaving 
small darkish brown point, his legs were so speckled that n 
was difficult to recognize the whiteness of his skin throug 
the spots of coagulated blood. If the insects of the genus 
Simulium abound in the Cassiquiare, which has white water , 
the culices or zancudos are so much the more rare; you 
scarcely find any there ; while on the rivers of black waters, 
in the Atabapo and the Rio, there are generally some zan 
cudos and no mosquitos. t. 
I have just shown, from my own observations, how muc 
the geographical distribution of venomous insects vanes i 
this labyrinth of rivers with white and black waters, 
were to be wished that a learned entomologist could stuO£ 
CM the spot the specific differences of these noxious insects, 
which in the torrid zone, in spite of their minute size, a 
an important point in the economy of nature. What ap- 
peared to us veiy remarkable, and is a fact known to all y 
missionaries, is, that the different species do not associa 
together, and that at different hours of the day you ax 
stung by distinct species. Every time that the scene change®' 
and, to use the simple expression of the missionaries, otn ■ 
insects ‘mount guard,’ you have a few minutes, oltci 
quarter of an hour, of repose. The insects that disapp* 
have not their places instantly supplied by their successor- 
From half-past-six in the morning till five in the afterno ’ 
the air is filled with mosquitos ; which have not, as so 
travellers have stated, the form of our gnats, t but 
of a small fly. They are simulium s of the family -W” .q 
cera of the system of Latreille. Their sting is as V 11 ' 1 ' ^ 
as that of the genus Stomox. It leaves a little red ’ 
brown spot, which is extravased and coagulated blood, vu 
their proboscis has pierced the skin. An hour before sun 
• The mosquito bom or tenbiguui ; the meter o, which always sc^ _ 
upon the eyes ; the tempranero , or pntchiki; the jejen; the gnat nX 
the great zancudo, or rnatchaki ; the cafo.fi , &c. t liund 
t Culex pipiens. This difference between mosquito (little fly,— s>“ u M 
and zancudo (gnat,— culex) exists in all the Spanish colonies. lbe it „s 
zancudo signifies * longlegs,’— qui Hen* las zancas largos. The mosq ol 
of the Orinoco are the moustiqnes ; the zancudos are the marmgou 
French travellers. 
