MOSQUITOES. 183 
mentioned, they also pass their early stages in water, and 
also, perhaps, in damp and shady ground. Here the adults 
are very numerous, though winds may carry them also farfrom 
their place of birth. They subsist on vegetable juices,* but 
if opportunity offers the females attack and suck the blood 
of all kinds of animals. Members of this family are recog- 
nized by their long body, by the fourteen-jointed, filiform and 
very plumose feelers, especially in the males; by the bulging 
thorax, by the narrow, cylindrical abdomen and thin legs, 
elongated narrow wings, lying flat on the body during rest, 
and by their humming sound during flight. The wings are 
covered, especially along the veins, with scales, some of 
which are shown in fig. 154. At least 30 species of these 
bloodthirsty insects are found in the United States, and some 
of the names molestus, nvusicus, damnosus, CExXCrUCLaNS, PrOVOCaNs, 
territans and others they received show that their powers of 
tormenting man and beast were fully realized by the authors. 
Dr. A. S. Packard, in his interesting book ‘‘Our Common In- 
sects,’ describes the mosquito and its mouth-parts in the 
following poetical words: ‘‘as she leaps off from her light 
bark, the cast chrysalis skin of her early life beneath the 
waters, and sails away in the sun-light, her velvety wings 
fringed with silken hairs, and her neatly bodiced trim figure 
(though her nose is rather salient, considering that it is half 
as long as her entire body), present a beauty and grace of 
form and movement quite unsurpassed by her dipterous 
allies. She draws near and softly alights upon the hand of 
the charmed beholder, subdues her trumpeting notes, folds 
her wings noiselessly upon her back, daintily sets down one 
foot after the other, and with an eagerness chastened by the 
most refined delicacy for the feelings of her victim, and with 
the air of Velpeau redivivus, drives through crushed and 
bleeding capillaries, shrinking nerves and injured tissues, a 
many-bladed lancet of marvellous fineness, of wonderful 
complexity and fitness. While she is engorging herself with 
our blood, we will examine under the microscope the mos- 
quito’s mouth. The head (fig. 152) is rounded, with the two 

* When sugaring for moths, a method often employed by entomologists to col- 
lect large numbers of owlet-moths, the bait is frequently covered with mosquitoes, 
all busily engaged in sucking this sweet material. 
