196 THOSE OTHER ANIMATES. 



blood they extract, and the pain and inflammation of the 

 wound, though often considerable, are not very much more 

 so than those of our own midnight assailants, the bug and 

 the flea. If they would but come and have their meal 

 in peace and quiet, man might bear it. It is their shrill 

 trumpeting, their approaches and departures, and the long 

 and agonising suspense that precedes the moment when, 

 their investigation complete, they fix on what appears to 

 them the most penetrable point, settle, and begin their meal, 

 that cows the spirit of the bravest man. Heroes who 

 would face the spring of an infuriated tiger, and lead a 

 column to the cannon's mouth, will quail and cover their 

 head with the sheet when they hear the shrill challenge of 

 the mosquito. 



Man has endeavoured by many means to defend himself 

 from this persecutor. He has rubbed himself with medica- 

 ments, and has hung up boughs of shrubs to which it is sup- 

 posed that the mosquito has an objection. He has invented 

 pastilles, whose smoke, it was hoped, would lull his foe into 

 a lethargy ; but at all these and similar measures the mosquito 

 laughs. The only resource affording even a partial pro- 

 tection is the mosquito curtain. In theory this device is 

 excellent. Man enclosed within a curtain of gauze ought 

 to be unassailable. Unfortunately the practice does not 

 follow the theory. However secure the curtains, however 

 great the pains bestowed in seeing that no mosquito was 

 present when the man was tucked up inside them, we 

 doubt whether history records a single example of com- 

 plete success having attended the arrangement. Do 

 what man will, the mosquito will be there. Its favourite 

 plan is to be beforehand with a man, and to hide some- 



