44 The Book of Hugs. 



there doesn't seem to be any other way than to believe it 

 implicitly, for the United States Department of Agricul- 

 ture prints it as a scientific fact. Then there are the 

 dragon-flies that sail through the air and gobble up mos- 

 quitoes and flies with a zest that has no limit. At one 

 time there was talk about encouraging the production of 

 dragon-flies, or ' snake-feeders," as the boys call them, 

 but it has fallen by the way-side. If they could be in- 

 duced to keep late hours, there would be some use in 

 them, but they go to bed early, while the mosquitoes prefer 

 the night for their operations. There are so many people 

 sitting out on their front stoops then, or trying to get a 

 little sleep. And this brings up an another pretty story. 

 That heartener of the discouraged, John Habberton, who 

 wrote ( Helen's Babies," declares that even the dead 

 dragon-fly is useful. Get three or four of them and sus- 

 pend them by silken threads on the front stoop, and he 

 says no mosquitoes will come near. It sounds reasonable, 

 and Mr. Habberton declares it is so, but when an entomo- 

 logist hears about it a queer sort of smile comes over his 

 face. He is likely to hint that mosquitoes will come 

 thicker than ever, curious to know what the dragon-flies 

 are doing out so late. It isn't well to provoke mosquitoes 

 to wrath, and undoubtedly they would be very angry when 

 they discovered that a deliberate attempt had been made 

 to deceive them. 



A third method was described to me by a clergyman, 

 which would seem to inspire a perfect confidence in it 

 had he not been notoriously fond of his joke. He said 

 that in Florida when a man had his vengeful spirit so 

 aroused that nothing but the death of many mosquitoes 

 could pacify it, he would take a hammer and crawl under 

 a big iron kettle. When the mosquitoes had drilled 

 through the kettle to get at him he would take the hammer 



