INSECT WEAPONS AND TOOLS 189 



held the rod. Immediately I felt a sharp sting 

 like the prick of a fine needle, but without pressure. 

 I endured this ; but as it was followed by a series 

 of still more severe digs, I was compelled to 

 remonstrate with vigour. When I looked at my 

 hand I could see a tiny speck of blood. I thought 

 no more of the incident at the time, but on the 

 following day my hand was very irritable. The 

 third day it was badly swollen ; the fourth day I 

 was compelled to call in medical assistance, as 

 the inflammation was steadily increasing and my 

 hand was seriously swollen. With suitable lotions 

 things were put right again after a day or so. 

 This is my own experience of a gad-fly's bite, 

 which is evidently not without danger. 



Recent experiments by eminent naturalists and 

 medical men tend to show that the most formidable 

 of insect pests, the Anopheles mosquito, conveys by 

 its bite the disease known as malaria. I have, in 

 Figs. 124 and 125, photographed the heads of 

 both the male and the female of this particular 

 mosquito. The latter alone possesses the blood- 

 sucking organs in entirety. The male may be 

 distinguished by his pretty hairy antennae, and is 

 harmless. The mouth-organs of the female are 

 in every way similar to those of the gad-fly. The 

 fine threadlike-looking lancets are found, when 

 greatly magnified, to have barbed tips very similar 



