EARLY ACCOUNTS OF MOSQUITOES. 



MOSQUITOES AS PESTS. 



The old writer, Thomas Moufet, collected from early writings accounts of 

 mosquito abundance, from which it appears that Herodotus noted that these 

 insects swarmed in prodigious numbers in old Egypt and that the natives of 

 marshy regions built towers on which to sleep, since the mosquitoes did not fly 

 high. Mosquito nets and canopies were in use in those early days. The army 

 of Julian the Apostate on one occasion was so fiercely attacked by mosquitoes 

 as to be driven back. In ancient Greece, according to Pausanias, the inhabitants 

 of cities were sometimes forced to abandon their homes on account of mosquitoes 

 making it impossible for them to remain. Mionte, a rich city of Ionia, was 

 abandoned by its inhabitants on account of mosquitoes which forced them to flee 

 to Mileta. The same thing happened with Pergamo, a beautiful city in Asia. 

 Sapor, King of Persia, according to Theodoritus, was compelled to raise the siege 

 of Nisibis by a plague of gnats which attacked his elephants and beasts of burden 

 and so caused the rout of his army. 



Ammianus Marcellinus, in his Eoman History, in discussing the wild beasts 

 of Mesopotamia, gives the following paragraph on lions versus mosquitoes 

 (quoted from Cowan) : 



" The lions wander in countless droves among the beds of rushes on the banks 

 of the rivers of Mesopotamia and in the jungles, and lie quiet all the winter, 

 which is very mild in that country. But when the warm weather returns, as 

 these regions are exposed to great heat, they are forced out by the vapours, and by 

 the size of the Gnats, with swarms of which every part of that country is filled. 

 And these winged insects attack the eyes, as being both moist and sparkling, 

 sitting on and biting the eyelids ; the lions, unable to bear the torture, are either 

 drowned in the rivers, to which they flee for refuge, or else, by frequent scratch- 

 ings, tear their eyes out themselves with their claws, and then become mad. And 

 if this did not happen, the whole of the East would be overrun with beasts of this 

 kind." 



Pliny, in his natural history, speaks of mosquitoes and in referring to their 

 humming noise says (freely translated) : " Who gave the mosquito so terrifying 

 a voice, infinitely greater than it should be in comparison to the size of its 

 body ? " He distinguished the Hymenoptera from the Diptera by stating that 

 the former have the sting in the tail and the latter in the mouth, and that to 

 the one it is given as an instrument of vengeance and to the other of avidity. 



About 1736 Culex pipiens became so numerous in England that, as described 

 by John Swinton, vast columns of them were seen to rise in the air from the 

 steeple of the cathedral at Salisbuiy, which, at a little distance, resembled 

 columns of smoke and caused many people to think that the cathedral was on 

 fire. In the same account it is stated that in the year 1766, in the month of 

 August, they appeared in such incredible numbers at Oxford as to resemble a 

 black cloud darkening the air and almost intercepting the rays of the sun. On 



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