The Way of the Mosquito. 41 



blackens the snow when the ice in lakes and rivers is five 

 feet thick. In no place on the continent are mosquitoes 

 more maddening than within the Arctic circle. One 

 would think that the extreme cold would freeze them out. 

 On the contrary, they like seasonable weather ; they want 

 it to be cold in winter. Wade, of Boston, found them 

 in his cellar so thick that they clustered around a lamp 

 chimney half an inch deep, and yet the}' shunned the 

 corner where the hot-air pipe was, preferring the cold 

 places. Generally they winter in barns, garrets, and 

 under bridges. In the South mosquito nets play an im- 

 portant part in the Christmas decorations. In those sec- 

 tions of the country where there are prolonged dry 

 seasons, the adult mosquitoes live on and on, watching 

 the weather reports daily, anxiously awaiting a chance 

 to lay their eggs as soon as the rains bring convenient 

 puddles. 



English people will tell you that in their happy isle 

 there are no such things as mosquitoes. One gets pretty 

 well used to this kind of talk in general, but in this par- 

 ticular instance the boast holds good, or, rather, did hold 

 good until within the last few years. It is not alone 

 dollars that the summer tourist has brought to London. 

 Mosquitoes have been imported on the ocean steamers, 

 and they have distressed the native British more than the 

 American visitors. Probably the name is a potent one to 

 conjure with, and some idea of what terrible things are 

 expected of mosquitoes may be learned from this simple 

 tale of the " North Coimtree." Some miners in remote 

 \vorkings of a Yorkshire colliery reported to the superin- 

 tendent that they had been much annoyed by the bites of 

 mosquitoes. He went down to see about it and found a 

 large and energetic colony of yellow-banded wasps- 

 " yaller jackets," if you like that better. 



