84 FROM NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR. 



the remaining portion and make a prolonged examination to assure 

 themselves that the organ is no longer present; if one suddenly 

 cuts off one of their hind-legs, they go on sucking as if nothing had 

 happened and continue to move the stump; if one cuts the blood- 

 filled body in half, they proceed like Munchausen's horse at the 

 well, but at length they withdraw the proboscis from the wound, 

 fly staggeringly away and die within a few minutes. 



Careful observation of their habits places it beyond doubt that, in 

 the discovery of their victim, they are guided less by sight than by 

 smell, or perhaps, more correctly, by a sense which unites smell and 

 tactile sensitiveness. 1 * It can be observed with certainty that, if a 

 human being approach within five yards of their resting-place, they 

 rise and fly to their prey without hesitating or diverging. If anyone 

 crosses a bare sand-bank usually free from them he can observe how 

 they gather about their victim. Apparently half carried by the 

 wind, half moving by their own exertions, but at any rate wander- 

 ing aimlessly, some float continually over even this place of pil- 

 grimage, and a few thus reach the neighbourhood of the observer. 

 At once their seeming inactivity is at an end. Abruptly they alter 

 their course, and make straight for the happily-found object of their 

 longing. Others soon join them, and before five minutes have 

 passed, the martyr is again surrounded by a nimbus. They find 

 their way less easily through different strata of air. While observing 

 them on a high dune I had been followed and tormented for some 

 time by thousands, so I led the swarm to the edge of the steep slope, 

 let it thicken there, and then sprang suddenly to the foot. With 

 much satisfaction I saw that I had shaken off the greater number of 

 my tormentors. They swarmed in bewildered confusion on the top 

 of the dune, forming a dense cloud for some time over the place 

 from which I had leaped. A few hundreds had, however, followed 

 me to the lower ground. 



Though the naturalist knows that it is only the female mos- 

 quitoes which suck blood, and that their activity in this respect is 

 indubitably connected with reproduction, and is probably necessary 

 to the ripening of the fertilized eggs, yet even he is finally over- 

 come by the tortures caused by these demons of the tundra, 



