Page:Insects - Their Ways and Means of Living.djvu/397

 QUITOES AND FLIES

more northern one common about Washington, D. C., where it breeds in rock pools along the Potomac River. The larva of Aëdes (Fig. 78 A) resembles a Culex larva, but it feeds more habitually at the bottom of the water and may spend long periods below without coming to the

Fro. 179. Mosquito pupae in natural position resting against the under surface of the water A, .4ëdes atropalpus. B, .4nopheles punctipennis

surface for air. In its search for food it noses about m the refuse at the bottom of the water and voraciously con- sumes dead insects and small crustaceans. The pupa like- wise (Fig. I79 A) does hOt differ materially from a Culex pupa. When quiet it floats at the surface of the water with the entire back of its thorax against the surface film and the tips of its breathing tubes above the surface. Probably no mosquito pupa hangs suspended from its resp.iratory tubes in the manner in which the pupae of vanous species are often figured. ./ëdes aegypti is the only known natural carrier of the virus of yellow lever from one person to another. The disease can be taken only from the bite of a mosquito of this species that has become infected by previous feeding on the blood of a yellow-fever patient. The organism that produces yellow fever is perhaps hOt yet definitely known, though strong evidence has been adduced to show

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INSECTS