198 THOSE OTHER ANIMALS. 



man against the mosquito; the one silent and watchful, 

 his arms outside the sheet ready for instant action, the 

 other, agile, ubiquitous, intent on exasperating and not on 

 attacking its victim, now resting for a time in a corner, then 

 making a rapid dash at the nose or ear, then disappearing 

 again, and lying silent for some minutes. Occasionally, 

 very occasionally, the man is victor, and with a rapid clutch 

 will grasp and annihilate the mosquito as it passes by his 

 face. In the vast majority of cases the man's watchfulness 

 is in vain. Hours pass, and Nature asserts herself. The 

 mosquito has had amusement enough, and now, meaning 

 business, remains quiet until its victim dozes off. Not until 

 he is sound asleep will it this time move. Then it settles 

 lightly upon him, inserts its delicate proboscis in one of the 

 pores of his skin, pours in a tiny drop of venom to dilute the 

 blood, and then having drunk till its body has swelled to 

 many times its original size, heavily flies away, and fastens 

 itself to the curtain, where it falls an easy victim to the 

 vengeance of the sleeper in the morning. Such is the con- 

 flict when one mosquito has found an entrance. When, as 

 is more usual, half a dozen have entered, it is, as may be 

 imagined, still more dire and disastrous; and the sleeper 

 in the morning wakes with perhaps an eye closed, and his 

 face swollen and disfigured by bumps almost beyond 

 knowledge. 



The existence of the mosquito can be accounted for only 

 upon the ground that he was sent as a special trial to man's 

 temper, but in that case Nature evidently miscalculated the 

 amount of self-control that man possesses. A trial can 

 hardly be considered as a trial when the result is certain, 

 ^nd the breakdown of man's temper under the attacks 



