294 JOURNEY TO THE SHORES 
within, the smoke driving the musquitoes into the 
crannies of the ground, But this remedy was 
now ineffectual, though we employed it so perse- 
veringly, as to hazard suffocation: they swarmed 
under our blankets, goring us with their enve- 
nomed trunks, and steeping our clothes in blood. 
We rose at day-light in a fever, and our misery 
was unmitigated during our whole stay. 
__ The musquitoes of America resemble, in shape, 
those of Africa and Europe, but differ essentially 
in size and other particulars. There are two 
distinct species, the largest of which is brown, 
and the smallest black. Where they are bred 
cannot easily be determined, for they are nume- 
rous in every soil. They make their first ap- 
pearance in May, and the cold destroys them in 
September ; in July they are most voracious; 
and fortunately for the traders, the journeys from 
the trading posts to the factories are generally 
concluded at that period. The food of the mus- 
quito is blood, which it can extract by penetrating 
the hide of a buffalo ; and if it is not disturbed, it 
gorges itself so as to swell its body into a trans- 
parent globe. The wound does not swell, like 
that of the African musquito, but it is infinitely 
more painful; and when multiplied an hundred 
fold, and continued for so many successive days, 
it becomes an evil of such magnitude, that cold, 
