122 Musmgs by Cajnp-Fire and Wayside 



friends. You can have neither without the other. 

 France, Ireland, Great Britain, and the Scandi- 

 navian peninsula are exceptions, because they have 

 westerly winds off three thousand miles of evapo- 

 rating surface, part of it the Gulf Stream. But we 

 cannot have it in the Mississippi Valley without 

 forests. The people of Nebraska, finding a treeless 

 region, are the best tree-planters in America, and 

 already they are having more abundant as well as 

 more seasonable rains. 



The mosquitoes are an object of unusual vindic- 

 tiveness; but I have been studying their habits, and 

 must say that ours improve on acquaintance. They 

 are regular and temperate in their habits. During 

 the day they sleep in various sheltered nooks 

 among the leaves and grasses. At sunset they go 

 out for supper, and retire at nine o'clock. Just at 

 daylight they present their bills of fare again. But 

 the conditions for mosquito good morals are favor- 

 able here. Our island is high, long, and windy; 

 almost always a good stiff breeze blowing. When 

 the mosquitoes essay to take a vestal or matutinal 

 flight, the wind carries them into the lake, and 

 there the festal minnow awaits them expectantly. 

 The minnow grows to be a fine bass, and then we 

 eat him. It is thus that poetic justice comes to the 

 sanguinary insect. But his life is short. By the 

 middle of July only a few feeble, discouraged strag- 

 glers remain. He has not at any time been as 



