THE HARDY MIDGE 35 



torturing curse. There are large areas of the 

 world's surface where biting gnats and mosquitoes 

 the same thing abound in uncountable millions, 

 and where of the larger forms of animal life there 

 is practically none. Mr. Hudson has described 

 such areas in Southern Argentina. The biters 

 exist in clouds, and when a man visits these parts 

 they assail him with a ravenous greed ; but year 

 in year out they never taste blood, though they 

 want it all the time. Their case is very much 

 the same in those large parts of the Amazon area, 

 where the biters thicken the air. 



In this state of things the naturalist may find 

 a hint of the explanation of the loss of eating 

 powers in the innocent midge, for the blood-sucking 

 capacity cannot be much of an advantage where 

 there is no blood to suck. At any rate, the loss 

 of its power does not seem to have " hurt its 

 prospects," for its various species continue to 

 abound in regions where the biter has become 

 extinct. And it is altogether a hardier creature. 

 Though the biting gnats abound from Greenland 

 to Patagonia, they are, as flying insects, em- 

 phatically creatures of the warm days. The other 

 is much less at the mercy of cold. Every-day 

 experience shows that it can survive the hardest 

 frosts experienced in Britain, and come out smiling 

 in the intervals. Indeed, it has been alleged that 

 even when it is frozen as hard as glass it can 

 be thawed out again into active life. 



The statement is not so incredible as it looks. 

 There is a prevalent belief that a hard winter is 

 destructive of insect life, but it is doubtful if 



