MOSQUITOES IN GENERAL 41 



so caused the rout of his army. Kirby and Spence say, 

 " In the neighborhood of Crimea the Kussian sohliers 

 are obliged to sleep in sacks in order to defend themselves 

 from the mosquitoes, and even this is not a sufficient se- 

 curity, for several of them die in consequence of mortifi- 

 cation produced by the bites of these furious bloodsuck- 

 ers." The same writers state that Captain Stedman, in 

 America (probably in ante-Revolutionary days), mentions 

 that he and his soldiers were forced to sleep with their 

 heads thrust into holes in the earth, and their necks 

 wrapped around with hammocks, and Humboldt sa3^s that 

 somewhere in South America the inhabitants pass the 

 night buried in sand, which covers them to the depth of 

 three or four inches, leaving out only the head, which is 

 covered with a cloth. There is even a mosquito story 

 which possibly aflfects the veracity of George Washington! 

 Isaac Weld, in his " Travels through North America, 

 1795-1797 " (London, 1799), in speaking of Skenesborough, 

 in northern New York, dilates upon the number and fe- 

 rocity of mosquitoes and says, " General Washington told 

 me that he never was so much annoyed by mosquitoes in 

 an}^ part of America as in Skenesborough, for that they 

 used to bite through the thickest boot." Now, knowing 

 that the boots of those days were very thick, and that the 

 mosquitoes of that time must have been structurally iden- 

 tical with those of to-day, there arises instantly the ques. 

 tion of veracity between Mr. Weld and General Washing- 

 ton, and as Ave know from Dr. Weems's veracious history 

 that General Wasliington was so constituted that he coidd 

 not tell a lie, it looks very much as though Mr. Weld, like 



