82 Dragon-flies and Damsel-flies 



toes are so abundant that no one neglects to enclose his bed carefully each 

 night in mosquito-netting, and all bedrooms are equipped with an ingenious 

 canopy which can be folded closely in the daytime and readily spread over 

 the bed at night. The continuous and abundant presence of mosquitoes 

 is such a matter of fact that it has dictated certain particular habits of life 

 to the inhabitants of Honolulu. But in the daytime one is singularly free 

 from mosquito attack. Coincidentally with this one notes the surprising 

 abundance and strangely domestic habits of great dragon-flies. I have 

 watched dozens of dragon-flies hawking about a hotel lanai (porch) in the 

 heart of the town. No pond or stream is nearer than the city's outskirts. 

 Dragon-flies are in the main streets, in all the gardens, and they are chiefly 

 engaged in the laudable business of hunting the hordes of "day" mosquitoes 

 to their death. The most conspicuous features of insect life in Hawaii are 

 the hosts of dragon-flies by day and the hordes of mosquitoes by night. As 

 the dragon-flies unfortunately are not night flyers (although some forms 

 keep up the hunting until it is really dark), it is by night that one realizes 

 what a plague the mosquito is in the islands. Were it not for the dragon- 

 flies, life in the islands would be nearly intolerable. The rice-swamps and 

 taro-marshes and the heavily irrigated banana and sugar plantations offer 

 most favorable breeding-grounds for the mosquitoes, but also fortunately 

 for the dragon-flies as well. The mosquitoes of Hawaii are not indigenous; 

 they were introduced with white civilization. It is told, and is not improb- 

 able, that the skipper of a trading schooner in early days, to revenge himself 

 for some slight put on him by the natives, purposely put ashore a cask of 

 water swarming with mosquito wrigglers. It needed no more than that 

 to colonize this fascinating tropic land with the mosquito plague. How 

 the saving dragon-flies came is not yet come to be tradition; indeed, few 

 Hawaiians understand how important a part the dragon-fly plays in their 

 life. They do appreciate the mosquito. 



In the Samoan Islands, too, where we have another tropical colony, 

 the mosquitoes are a great plague. Here the matter is made more serious. 

 The Samoan mosquitoes are carriers and disseminators of a dreadful disease 

 known as elephantiasis from the enormous enlargement of the legs and 

 arms of sufferers from it. This disease is the great scourge of these islands, 

 more than 30% (from my own observation; 40% and 50% are estimates 

 given by other observers) of the natives having it. (For an account of 

 the role of mosquitoes in the dissemination of malaria, yellow fever, and 

 elephantiasis, see Chapter XVIII of this book.) The dragon-flies are, in 

 Samoa as in Hawaii, conspicuous by their abundance and variety, and they 

 do much to keep in check the quickly breeding mosquitoes. 



Watching the flying dragon-flies over a pond, you may occasionally 

 see one poising just over the surface of the water, and striking it with the 



