THE MOSQUITO'S TRAGEDY 93 



a fortnight of her first meal of blood. Where should 

 she go to lay her eggs ? She had tried all the water 

 in the house, but it was all clean and filtered ; it 

 contained no food for her young. She searched the 

 house. If she did lay her eggs on the clean water in 

 the jug, there would be no male for her to consort 

 with again. She looked everywhere no males. 



At last she determined to return to the cesspool 

 where she had been born. She knew that there 

 would be males of her species therein, and that the 

 water would contain plenty of food for her young 

 larvae when they had hatched out of the eggs. She 

 flew down the stone stairs, through the chink in the 

 wall of the cellar ; but a new smell confronted her 

 petroleum. The surface of the water was covered 

 with it. Everywhere she went the oil faced her. 

 There were no males here. No mosquitos of any 

 kind. What was she to do ? She could not lay her 

 eggs on oil. So she left her birthplace and sought 

 another water collection. Everywhere she found 



/ 



the work of the mosquito brigade. Utensils were 

 either empty or contained only clean water, and all 

 stagnant water had been recently oiled. 



Eventually, after searching in every direction, she 

 wandered to another house and found a fountain in 

 the garden. The water contained many mosquito 

 larvae. There had been goldfish there, but they had 

 died for some unknown reason, and the mosquito 

 brigade had not noticed the fact. She laid her eggs 

 on the still water during the night, and in the morning 

 found a newly hatched male to fill her exhausted 



