80 
A Monograph of Culicidae. 
will show the wide area over which it is found, but C. fatigans 
shows more variation than Stegomyia fasciata, and perhaps has 
not quite such a wide northern spread. 
It is not only on account of the wide area over which certain 
species are found that the geographical distribution of the 
Culicidae is of interest, but more especially on account of certain 
anomalies which some species present in regard to this dis¬ 
tribution. 
Who would expect to find living around and in the 
Himalayas European species 1 Yet such is the case. Major 
Giles sends me a specimen taken at Naini Tal of Noe’s Culex 
mimeticus, and another of Culex spathipalpis, of Rondani, also 
Culex annulatus, which Major Lindsay found in the Punjaub. 
Still more remarkable is the fact that the Arctic species, Culex 
nigripes, Zett., occurs on the Himalayas at between 13,000 and 
13,500 feet. Probably it occurs in the intervening tract of 
Siberia and Turkestan. 
In Mueidus alternans, Westwood, we again get a curiously 
wide distribution in Natal and Australia. I have carefully 
examined specimens from both countries, and cannot detect the 
slightest difference between them. 
Anopheles, however, seem more restricted in distribution, yet 
some cover a wide area. Grassi’s A. superpictus, of Europe, I feel 
sure occurs in India ; * our A. maculipennis, Meigen, is the same 
as A. punctipennis, Say, in America; whilst there is such a close 
resemblance between Grassi’s A. pseudopictus, Van der Wulp’s 
A. annularis, Wiedemann’s A. Sinensis, and Giles’s A. fuliginosus, 
from Europe, Malay Peninsula, China, -and India respectively, 
that I can only look upon them as sub-species of A. Sinensis. We 
have thus to deal with insects which often have a very wide and 
strange distribution, but which in many respects can easily be 
accounted for. This wide distribution naturally gives rise to 
much local variation, and as the characters distinguishing species 
are often indistinct, the question as to whether any particular 
mosquito is a true species, or merely a local variety, is one of 
some difficulty to decide, unless one has a large amount of 
material to examine. The most constant characters I find in 
the scales, and hence have employed them largely in separating 
species from one another. 
* Further examination has proved this to be incorrect. 
