70 MOSQUITOS. 



We have spoken of Gnats and Mosquitos almost as one, 

 because to ordinary observers there is very little exterior dif- 

 ference between them, though as naturalists have reckoned 

 near thirty species of the Culex or Gnat family in Britain alone, 

 the pest of the Tropics and the Poles is no doubt a variety. 

 And, verily, if these perpetual plagues in the air were the sole 

 evils attendant on fierce extremes of climate, we should have 

 ample cause to " bless our stars" or rather bless our sun in 

 whose tempered beams our Mosquitos are but as harmless 

 motes compared with sparks of living fire. Sparks of fire ! 

 what say we ? Sparks of fire, nay, showers of fire-balls could 

 shew respect to the Great Washington's boots, yet are we told 

 that the General of freedom was pierced through his calf's 

 skin, even to his calves, by tyrant Mosquitos ; and that Italian 

 blood-suckers of the shores of the Po, "great and terrible" as 

 their western brethren, can also plunge their stilettos through 

 a shield of leather, backed by a defence of triple hose. Well 

 might legionary demons, armed like these, have routed a Per- 

 sian army ; well might lions flee before them ; well might they 

 bequeath their conquering name " Mosquito" to country, bay, 

 and town in that quarter of the globe, where chiefly they 

 usurp dominion ; and in another, Pole-wards, well may the 

 Lapland peasant encase himself in a cloud of smoke, and the 

 Crimean soldier in his sack, as a protection from envenomed 

 weapons, thick as descending snow-flakes, and keen as the cut- 

 ting frost of their native winters. These polar demons seem 



