42 MOSQUITOES 



certain other travellers who have written books on their 

 return home after extended travel, was somewhat inclined 

 to overstate the truth. 



Far Northern Mosquitoes. 



As is well known, the mosquito-pest is hy no means 

 confined to the tropics or even to temperate regions. 

 The stories which the returning- gold-hunters from 

 Dawson City and other Alaskan localities tell of the 

 abundance and ferocity of Alaskan mosquitoes, are 

 hardly to be matched by any mosquito story which I 

 have heard, historical or otherwise. Many of my 

 friends in the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, 

 and the United States Geological Surve}'^, who have 

 formed members of summer parties for survey work in 

 Alaska, have come back to this country with a much 

 stronger idea of the importance of the practical study of 

 insects than they had when they started, their acquaint- 

 ance with mosquitoes having become so intimate and 

 their knowledge of their ferocit}" having reached such a 

 pitch that the first question which the}^ ask on returning 

 is : " If I have to go up there next summer, what under 

 the sun can I do to keep from being bled to death by 

 mosquitoes ? " They state that they never experienced 

 or even imagined anything in the mosquito line quite 

 equal to those found in Alaska. Mr. W. C. Henderson, 

 of Philadelphia, says, concerning Alaskan mosquitoes, 

 " The}^ existed in countless millions, driving us to the 

 verge of suicide or insanity." 



