2 6 THE TRIBES ON MY FRONTIER. 



their winged state at least, the flimsier kinds do not, such 

 as flies, and gnats, and butterflies. They have done all the 

 serious business of life, the eating and growing, in their 

 grub state, and when they dress up and come out into the 

 world, to enjoy a few days of vanity before they die, they 

 have no proper mouths, only a sort of tube for sipping light 

 refreshments. But supposing that mosquitos do require 

 nourishing food, the great difficulty still remains. Why can 

 they not bleed us painlessly ? Why make us pay fees in 

 anguish for the operation ? It can be no advantage to them 

 that we wince and jump when they sit down to dine. Who 

 would thank anybody for inventing a pump which should 

 tickle the earth so horribly as to bring on earthquakes when- 

 ever one went for water ? The traveller who invented the 

 original vampire bat understood matters better, and made the 

 horrid monster fan its victim gently with its ample wings, that 

 he might the more sweetly sleep on into the sleep of death. 

 So, from the Darwinian standpoint, mosquitos ought to have 

 developed some sweet narcotic fluid, some natural rosalpinus> 

 which would produce the most exquisitely pleasurable titil- 

 lations, and make the fat man hasten to resign his back, sore 

 vexed with prickly heat, to their soothing ministrations, and 

 his soul to sweetest dreams. I hold that Darwin, weighed 



