CHAPTER VI. 



THE MOSQUITO AND ITS FRIENDS. 



THE subject of flies becomes of vast moment to a Pharaoh, 

 whose ears are dinned with the buzz of myriad winged plagues, 

 mingled with angry cries from malcontent and fly-pestered sub- 

 jects; or to the summer traveller in northern lands, where 

 they oppose a stronger barrier to his explorations than the lofti- 

 est mountains or the broadest streams ; or to the African pio- 

 neer, whose cattle, his main dependence, are stung to death by 

 the Tsetze fly ; or the farmer whose eyes on the evening of a 

 warm spring day, after a placid contemplation of his growing 

 acres of wheat blades, suddenly detects in dismay clouds of the 

 Wheat midge and Hessian fly hovering over their swaying tops. 

 The subject, indeed, has in such cases a national importance, 

 and a few words regarding the main points in the habits of flies 

 how they grow, how they do not grow (after assuming the 

 winged state), and how they bite; for who has not endured the 

 smart and sting of these dipterous Shylocks, that almost tor- 

 ment us out of our existence while taking their drop of our 

 heart's blood may be welcome to our readers. 



The Mosquito will be our first choice. As she leaps off from 

 her light bark, the cast chrysalis skin of her early life beneath 

 the waters, and sails away in the sunlight, her velvety wings 

 fringed with silken hairs, and her neatly bodiced trim figure 

 (though her nose is rather salient, considering that it is half as 

 long as her entire body), present a beauty and grace of form and 

 movement quite unsurpassed by her dipterous allies. She draws 

 near and softly alights upon the hand of the charmed beholder, 

 subdues her trumpeting notes, folds her wings noiselessly upon 

 her back, daintily sets down one foot after the other, and with 

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