The Way of the Mosquito. 45 



and clinch their bills fast so that they could not get away, 

 leaving them to perish miserably. My informant de- 

 nounced this as a cruel practice. 



A great many mosquitoes are killed by being slapped 

 to death, but if only one in a million gets a taste of blood, 

 and even if, say, one in three is slain by the enraged hu- 

 man (a liberal estimate), it is easy to see that this is 

 almost insignificant as a cause of mortality. 



It must be confessed that we are more interested in 

 how to get rid of the mosquito than in anything else about 

 it. If the species should become as extinct as the dodo, 

 a sigh would go up, but not of regret. Most of the 

 mosquito remedies are mere palliatives. Oil of penny- 

 royal, sassafras, kerosene, and all kinds of messy things 

 have been recommended to rub on the face and hands to 

 keep the torments away. But mosquitoes seem to be 

 very much like human beings in the matter of drink. 

 There may be a good many annoyances to put up with in 

 the process of getting the blood, but the thirsty mosquito 

 faces them all. They do say that if you burn insect 

 powder it will keep them off, and if they are in a room 

 the acrid smoke will stupefy them and you can sweep them 

 up and burn them. Also you can take a blacking-box 

 lid and nail it on the end of a long stick, and then put 

 kerosene in the lid and go about the room holding it next 

 to the mosquitoes as they cling to the walls and ceiling. 

 They say that the insects will fall into the kerosene and 

 die suddenly. 



But this is only pottering round. \Yhat the country 

 needs is a wholesale slaughter so that the day might come 

 when a man could call to his wife : " Mary ! come out here 

 quick. I want to show you something. Hurry or she'll 

 get away. Look there ! See it ? No, no, silly ! not over 

 there. Right where my finger is pointing. Don't you 



