Volume 1
The mosquitoes of North and Central America and the West Indies / by Leland O. Howard, Harrison G. Dyar, and Frederick Knab.
- Howard, L. O. (Leland Ossian), 1857-1950.
- Date:
- 1912-1917
Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Credit: The mosquitoes of North and Central America and the West Indies / by Leland O. Howard, Harrison G. Dyar, and Frederick Knab. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.
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![continued with us nearly to the town, in the end being much disturbed by the wind. About 7 o'clock quite a number of copulations were observed. The females approached the swarm from beneath and left it united with a male, the pair drifting away toward the ground and the union lasting but a short time. They copulate face to face, grasping each other with their long legs, the female in the upper position, the male back downward. This day proved the maximum of activity for this species of mosquito. No more swarming of males or matings were observed. In the same paper occurs an account of the swarming of Aedes fitchii, also in Saskatchewan. Following is the description: On the evening of June 19 I was fortunate enoi;gh to observe the swarming of this species in a shallow depression at the head of one of the ravines near Oxbow. The ground sloped gently from the prairie, which at that point was 15 or 20 feet above the bottom of the depression. When the swarm of males was first noticed, at 8.30 p. m., it was loosely organized, and there were perhaps forty individuals, which gyrated and circled about close to the ground. Close by there were some thorn brushes, and between and round these were several swarms of Chironomidae, but no mosquitoes. In a short time other swarms of mosquitoes began to form in the open, along the bottom of the depression and on the western slope, where they were protected from the wind. These various swarms kept close to the ground and spread out in such a way that they might be said to have been loosely connected, but still there were foci where the mosquitoes were massed closer together. At no time was the top of a swarm more than four feet above the ground, while it spread out to at least twice that diameter. The size of the swarms gradually increased until, at 9 o'clock, one swarm con- tained several hundred males. Copulation took place most frequently between 9 and 9.15, but matings were observed both earlier and later. The females en- tered the swarm from beneath, when they were seized by one or more males. Union takes place ' face to face,' the pair flying obliquely upward for several yards. Then the pair would either separate promptly or swing out end to end and struggle to disengage themselves. In this latter case both of them could be seen to jerk violently and rapidly in their efforts to free themselves, and the pair would slowly rise, but make no appreciable progress in either direction. When two males seized a female the group would rise straight into the air, apparently engaged in a violent struggle, one of the males finally uniting with the female or all of them separating. In one case four individuals rose thus, scrambling over each other, so to speak. The swann was watched until 9.30, when the twilight was already quite deep; copulation appeared to have ceased and the swarms were gradually breaking up. Surgeon E. H. Eoss remarks as follows regarding the mating-habits of Aedes [Acartomyia] zammittii of the Mediterranean region. Coitus does not necessarily take place on the wing, for I have observed it occur when the female is resting on the edge of the glass jar or sitting on the rock; the male clasping the female when she is sitting. Knab has observed that the males of Megarhinus tend to congregate upon a certain bush, alighting upon prominent leaves. Near Puntarenas in Costa Rica he captured six males of Megarhinus moctezuma upon a single bush. When approached they would fly up but alight upon another leaf of the same bush; two that were frightened away returned to the bush after a short time. No others could be found anywhere in the vicinity. Mr. J. K. Thibault, Jr., of 10](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2135716x_0001_0153.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
