3I0SQUIT0ES IN GENERAL 43 



That mosquitoes slioiild develoi^ in such extraordinary 

 numbers in the arctic regions is remarkable when we con- 

 sider the extreme brevity of the summer season. Surelj 

 only a very few generations have an opportunity to develop. 

 They must therefore hibernate in great numbers even in 

 that extreme cold, and their occurrence in this way in such 

 localities, when we consider the comparative scarcity of 

 mammalian life, indicates in a forcible way how small a 

 l^art the blood of warm-blooded animals plays in the nor- 

 mal economy of mosquito life. 



It did not need these recent experiences, however, to 

 assure us of the abundance of mosquitoes in arctic regions. 

 Kirby and Spence tell extraordinary stories of their 

 occurrence in Lapland, where their numbers are said to 

 be so prodigious as to be compared to a fall of snow 

 when the flakes are thickest, or to the dust of the earth. 

 There is a mention of this abundance in the narrative of 

 C. F. Hall's second arctic expedition, and on the Polaris 

 Expedition, Dr. Emile Bessels was obliged to interrupt 

 his work in the Davis Straits (latitude 72° north) on ac- 

 count of the multitude of mosquitoes. 



In explanation of these extraordinary numbers — and all 

 these stories are unquestionably measurably true— we 

 must only think of the universal occurrence of standing 

 water and of the fact that the food required by mosquito 

 larvfe is very small and very insignificant, consisting 

 mainly of the micro-organisms which exist in stagnant 

 water, and of the further fact that enormous numbers can 

 breed successfully in a very small water supply. As an 

 indication of this latter fact. Lugger, in 1896, undertook 



