GNATS, MIDGES, AND MOSQUITOES 23$ 



may be the case elsewhere. There is evidence enough 

 of this in literature. Enormous swarms of gnats, of 

 one kind or another, seem formerly to have been a 

 not unusual experience, though such a thing now scarcely 

 ever occurs here. The poet Spenser, for example, men- 

 tions as a familiar sight " a swarm of Gnats at eventide " 

 that " out of the fennes of Allan doe arise," 



" Whiles in the air their clust'ring army flies, 

 That as a cloud doth seem to dim the skies ; " 



and that Culices are intended seems certain, since they 

 persecute man and beast, 



"Till the fierce northern wind with blust'ring blast 

 Doth blow them quite away, and in the ocean cast." 



There are several records of swarms that have looked in 

 the distance like clouds of smoke, and have consequently 

 given rise to an alarm of fire, as was the case at Salis- 

 bury Cathedral in 1736. According to Professor Riley, 

 the northern mosquitoes of America pass the winter in the 

 perfect state, hybernating in a semi-torpid condition ; 

 and a writer in Insect Life describes an enormous con- 

 gregation of them as having been found hybernating in 

 the corner of a cellar. This habit does not appear to 

 hold good in all parts of the world. 



A very peculiar connection between human beings 

 and mosquitoes has been made out in recent years. It is 

 well known that there is a class of worm-like creatures 

 differing from the earth-worm and other similar animals 

 in not having the body divided into a series of rings, 

 that inhabit various parts of the bodies of vertebrate and 

 other animals. Man is subject to the attacks of several 

 parasites of this sort, and shares them with other animals, 

 i.e., the parasites pass through their early life in the 



