THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 311 



uSj after us, and against us, from above and from below, in 

 volumes that ever increased. 



"As soon as the sun had dipped beneath the sea of 

 verdure, an ominous sound caused me to gallop on with 

 increasing haste. The pony seemed to know the significance 

 of that sound much better than its rider. He no longer 

 lagged, nor needed the spur or whip to urge him to faster 

 exertion, for darker and denser than on the previous night 

 there rose around us vast numbers of mosquitoes, — choking 

 masses of biting insects, no mere cloud thicker and denser in 

 one place than in another, but one huge wall of never-ending 

 insects, filling nostrils, ears, and eyes. Where they came 

 from I cannot tell : the prairie ^seemed too small to hold 

 them ; the air too limited to yield them space. I have seen 

 many vast accumulations of insect-life in lands old and new, 

 but never anything that approached to this mountain of 

 mosquitoes on the prairies of Dakota. To say that they 

 covered the coat of the horse that I rode, would be to give 

 but a faint idea of their numbers: they were literally six or 

 eight deep upon his skin, and with a single sweep of the 

 hand one could crush myriads from his neck. Their hum 

 seemed to be in all things around. To ride for it was the 

 sole resource. Darkness came quickly down, but the track 

 knew no turn, and for seven miles I kept the pony at a 

 gallop ; my face, neck, and hands, cut and bleeding. 



" It took us but little time to rush over the gangway and 

 seek safety from our pursuers within the precincts of the 

 steamboat. But they were not to be baffled easily : they 

 came in after us in millions ; like Bishop Haddo's rats, they 

 came ' in at the windows and in at the doors,' until in a very 

 short space of time the interior of the boat became perfectly 

 black with insects. Attracted by the light they flocked into 

 the saloon, covering walls and ceiling in one dark mass. 



" It is no unusual event during a wet summer, in that 

 portion of Minnesota and Dakota to which 1 refer, for oxen 

 and horses to perish from the biles of mosquitoes. An expo- 

 sure of a very i'ew hours' duration is sufficient to cause death 

 to these animals. It is said, too, that not many years ago the 

 Sioux were in the habit of sometimes killing their captives by 

 exposing them at night to the attacks of the mosquitoes: 

 and any person who has experienced the full intensity of a 

 mosquito night, along the American portion of the Red 



