Influence of Light on the Gorging of Culex pipiens L

Abstract

IN England the blood-feeding habits of Culex pipiens have been subject to doubt. Thus, Mac-Gregor¹ states that “Attention must be drawn to the discrepancies which seem to exist between the habits of the representatives of this species in Britain, the U.S.A., France and elsewhere. For instance, great difficulty is ordinarily experienced in Britain in getting C. (C.) pipiens to ‘bite’ naturally; so much is this the case that it is even now not generally recognised that the species is a blood feeder in this country.” Woodcock, on the other hand, says that “Culex pipiens is essentially the British mosquito which likes Avian blood”.² Hitherto the difficulty of inducing C. pipiens to gorge under experimental conditions has been a source of difficulty to workers, and MacGregor³ says that in his work on avian malaria “an unforeseen difficulty arose in that only a very small proportion of the mosquitoes (Anopheles maculipennis, Culex pipiens and Aëdes argenteus) could be induced to feed on birds”.