A somewhat similar story is told by Sir Hiram Maxim in The Times of October 29, 1901. One of the lamps in an installation which was put up in Saratoga Springs, New York, hummed in an agreeable manner, and he noticed that night after night this lamp was covered with small insects. On closer examination he found that they were all mosquitos, and all males.
CHAPTER VII
THE MOSQUITO (Anopheles maculipennis)
Part IV
Gnats are unnoted wheresoe’er they fly,
But eagles gazed upon with every eye.
(Shakespeare, Rape of Lucrece.)
The eggs of the mosquito are deposited in fresh water, and at first they are white, but they very rapidly darken until they assume a polished black appearance. Each egg is 0·72 mm. in length, and its greatest breadth, which is somewhere about its middle, is 0·16 mm. The egg is boat-shaped, and one end, as is usual in boats, is slightly deeper and fuller than the other. The under surface is fluted, and is marked by a minute network. The upper surface has a coarser reticulation which divides the surface into nearly equal hexagonal areas. The rim of the ‘boat’ is thickened, and these thickenings are regularly ribbed; they extend over above the median third of the egg, and recall the rounded float which runs along the edge of a life-boat: and indeed they serve the same purpose, for they are composed of air-cells, and their function is to keep the boat-shaped eggs right side upward. Soon after the egg has been laid it is of a greyish-black colour, but after a certain amount of attrition an outer membrane splits off—the membrane which has given the egg its reticulated appearance. This membrane scales off in fragments, and is of a grey colour. The egg beneath it is glistening black—as shiny and as black as patent leather.
One curious fact that Professor Nuttall and I noticed in the life-history of the egg is that when it is drawn by capillary forces a little way out of the water on to the leaf of a water-plant or some other half-submerged object, the blunt end always points downwards. Now the blunt end is the head end, and thus, should hatching take place whilst the egg is suspended half in the water and half in the air, the larva will emerge into its proper element and not into the atmosphere.
Fig. 19.—Larva and eggs of Anopheles maculipennis. A, Egg seen from the side, × about 20; fl, the float. B, Egg seen from the upper surface, × about 20; fl, ridge of air-chambers, which acts as a float. C, Very young larval stage, × about 20; st, stigma. D, Fully grown larva, × about 20; b, brush ant, antenna; mp, palp of maxilla; st, stigma; t, tergum; ap, anal papillae. E, Flabellum or flap, which overhangs the base of certain thoracic hairs. F, A palmate hair, highly magnified. (From Nuttall and Shipley.)