40 MOSQUITOES 



writes that in INIoiitaua lio has s(U'n all tlu; workhorses in 

 the field sheathed in sheets during- the day, and these were 

 dotted with small blood spots. 



An ol)servation made by my colleag-ue, Mr. E. A. 

 Schwarz, at Cori)us Christi, I have had occasion to quote 

 several times. He says that at this place, when the wind 

 blows from any other direction than south, "hundreds (<f 

 thousands of millions " of mosquitoes blow in ui)on the 

 town. Great herds of horses run before the mosquitoes in 

 order to get to the w^ater, but that with a chang-e of wind 

 the mosquitoes disappear. The instance mentioned by 

 the Hon. J. D. Mitchell, of Victoria, Texas, and which is 

 quoted in the section on " How Far Do Mosquitoes Fly ? " 

 is another indication of the enormous numbers in which 

 these insects ma}- occasionall}' occur, even in localities 

 where they are ordinarily not very abundant. 



In olden times, mosquitoes appear to have been quite 

 as numerous as they are to-day, and the literature of pop- 

 ular entomolog-y contains many instances of the enormcms 

 numbers in which mosquitoes have occurred in times i)ast. 



In ancient Greece, according" to Pausanias, inhabitants 

 were forced to abandon their homes on account of mos- 

 quitoes' making- it impossible for them to remain. Mionte, 

 a rich city of Ionia, was abandoned l)v its inhabitant.^; on 

 account of mosquitoes which forced them to flee to Mileta. 

 The same thing- happened with Perg-amo, a beautiful city 

 in Asia. Someone 1ms calhnl attention to the fact that 

 Theo(h)retus says that Sapor, Kiug of Persia, was com- 

 pelled to raise the sieg-e of Nisibis liy a ]dagfue of g-nats, 

 which attacked his elephants and beasts of burden, and 



