96 The Book of Bugs. 



wouldn't have for a precious gift, and these took so much 

 of my money that we'll have to use the old ones. I hated 

 to throw them away. They are as good as new, and 

 I went all over them carefully with corrosive sub- 

 limate." 



Well," says you, 'they won't cuddle down much in 

 the cold iron cracks in these beds." 



And that night you dream of mosquitoes again. 



Just about then it dawns on you that a creature that 

 has lived with man for so long, that lives exclusively in 

 man's houses and gets its growth onlr by sucking man's 

 blood, must have accumulated some little wisdom and 

 understanding of his ways. If it is to bite man at all it 

 must bite him when he is sluggish with sleep, and in the 

 dark, when it is easy to hide. The broad daylight, when 

 man is wide awake and his keen eye can detect the 

 smallest creature moving on the white sheets, is no time 

 to frequent the bed unless one would court death. Only 

 the feeble-minded and the heedless are captured so. 

 When day breaks they forsake the scene of their nightly 

 revels and betake them to the crevices of the wall, and in 

 the mattress wherever they can find a place between 

 stitches through which they can slip their thin, flat selves. 

 Get at them ? Not with powders and liquids. 



I'll tell you. Take a Sunday newspaper and cut it into 

 strips about two inches wide. Get some sulphur from 

 the drug-store. It comes all ready to light for disinfect- 

 ing purposes. Put it in a pan, and set that pan in a bigger 

 one that has water or loam in it. That is so you won't 

 set the house on fire. Get some molasses and paste the 

 strips of paper over the cracks of the windows that com- 

 municate with the outside air. Mind you do this, else 

 will your labor be but in vain. Pour a little alcohol on the 

 sulphur and the wick in it. Touch a lighted match to it 



