THE MOSQUITO. 



THERE is nothing in the appearance of the mosquito 

 to excite alarm even in the most timid breasts, no 

 sign of his almost diabolical nature, or of his power of 

 making himself obnoxious. And yet he is endowed with 

 a subtlety, a malice, and a fiendish thirst for blood un- 

 paralleled save in the leech. The mosquito is found in 

 almost every climate and country, sounding his trumpet 

 as vehemently by the shores of the Arctic Sea as beside 

 a sluggish stream on the Equator, the British Islands being 

 almost alone in their happy immunity from its presence ; and 

 among all the varied blessings for which a Briton has cause 

 to be thankful there is scarcely one so peculiar and so 

 marked as the absence of this creature. It is probably seen 

 at its worst in the north of Russia, Norway and Sweden, 

 and in some of the Northern States of America. In these 

 countries it is hardly safe to leave a horse out at night, for 

 although we may safely discredit the legends that horses 

 have been carried off bodily by mosquitoes, these animals 

 have undoubtedly been killed by the poisonous bites of 

 their innumerable foes. It is the methods of the mosquito 

 rather than the injury it inflicts that drive men to madness. 

 It is not that they are greatly grudged the drop or two of 



