THE MOSQUITO. 



ripening towards malefaction ; and you may spill their lives 

 not by tens or hundreds, but by quarts and gallons. 



But all means of prevention are more or less disap- 

 pointing, for after all it is ordained that mosquitos shall 

 bite us. What is wanted, then, is 

 some cure, or antidote, for the bite 

 and there is only one, of which 

 I am the original discoverer. A 

 bigoted old Brahmin, who never 

 tired of unmasking the inherent 

 badness of everything English, 

 once admitted to me in a moment 

 of candour that in one point we 

 were better than his countrymen. 

 " If a Hindoo," he said, "invents 



or discovers anything, he keeps it secret and makes 

 all the profit he can out of it, and when he dies, it 

 dies with him; but if an Englishman makes a dis- 

 covery, he publishes it and the world gets the benefit." 

 So I will divulge my antidote for mosquito-bites. It is 

 inoculation. The idea is curiously supported by analogy, 

 for Dr. E. Nicholson, in his book on snakes, speaking of the 

 confidence with which Burmese snake-charmers handle 1 the 



