282 MIDGES 



inland, faint at first, but waxing daily, till they threatened 

 to become overpowering. Our inspector of nuisances is 

 a diligent official, but he was staggered by the spectacle 

 of tons of decomposing whale-beef and blubber. Luckily, 

 our shallow bay is not a favourite resort of rorquals, and 

 he has not been called upon since that winter to deal with 

 flotsam and jetsam on a similar scale. 



LXVIII 



From the whales to the midges is a long step, seeing 

 that a fair-sized rorqual is about twenty thou- 

 sand times the length of a midge; but to the 

 average citizen the presence of a swarm of midges is of 

 more moment than many whales. The term ' midges ' 

 is used to denote the whole family of Chironomidse, of 

 which there have been two hundred and sixty-eight 

 different species identified as inhabiting Britain. But 

 this includes all the gnats, which only occasionally give 

 much trouble in this country; our affair is chiefly with 

 two or three species of Ceratopogon, a ponderous poly- 

 syllable to apply to a creature measuring less than the 

 twentieth part of an inch in length. The amount of 

 torment which these minute creatures are capable of 

 inflicting upon the lord of creation, let those testify who 

 have encountered them on the moors or by the side of 

 a salmon pool. And note, that it is believed that the 

 females only thirst for human blood, the males spending 

 their brief existence in perpetual flirtation. They prefer 

 human victims because of the smoothness of their skins. 

 Many a time must the problem have presented itself to 

 persecuted mortals, What do these creatures subsist on 

 where no human being comes ? 



