MOSQUITOES OF ALASKA 139 



off a dense smoke. I have seen telegraph operators ticking messages out at 

 isolated stations with their heads in a cloud of smoke from a smudge in a bucket 

 under the table, while mosquitoes hummed thick everywhere except in the im- 

 mediate vicinity. 



" Stock has to be well protected in summer from their bites. I have seen and 

 heard of numerous cases where the poor animals have been driven frantic 

 from bites when not protected with empty gunny-sacks or nets of some kind. 

 The mosquitoes alight on the animals in such swarms as to entirely change the 

 color of the hide. Anything with blood seems to be a sweet morsel, and mosqui- 

 toes seem to race to see which shall be the first at it and the last to leave it. 



" The Alaskan mosquitoes are huge, fierce, aggressive, and extraordinarily 

 persevering, and stop at nothing, for I have been well bitten through the pores 

 of my buckskin gauntlets. 



" When steamers stop at a wood-pile to ' wood-up ' the deck hands wrap their 

 heads up, leaving only the face exposed, and consequently only one spot to de- 

 fend, and each will move with his own attentive following in a dense and close 

 formation around his devoted head. 



" The use of head-nets — a form of mosquito bar which is worn over the head 

 and comes down on the shoulders — is very common except in the timber, but it 

 is a fine scheme for torture if it gets torn, for the mosquitoes are always on the 

 alert unless prevented by rain, wind or smoke. The Indian smears his face, 

 neck and hands with a thick coating of mud and uses a smudge. 



" In Eex Beach's good story, ' The Barrier,' his killing a man with mosquitoes 

 is by no means far-fetched, for one can well imagine a man being stung to death 

 by the pests when left bound for insect slaughter. Personally I heard of a pros- 

 pector in the Inuoko country who had lost his bearings and wandered around in 

 the brush and timber with no means of warding off the attacks of mosquitoes, 

 and when found he was a raving maniac and never recovered. The Jersey 

 branch of the family is a mild suggestion compared with the Alaskan branch. 

 In Alaska the mosquito seems to breed in the tundra, brush, trees, anywhere 

 where there is moisture. The clearing off of the brush seems to lessen the swarms 

 in the immediate vicinity. I have watched a ball game at Fairbanks, standing in 

 the smoke of a smudge, and after the sun set, 10.30 p. m., was driven to cover 

 by them. They are as bad on the coast as in the interior, in the old settlements 

 as in the new, and are generally warred upon without seeming effect." 



