22 GRAMMAR OF ENTOMOLOGY. 



annoying, are not mosquitoes ; many of our com- 

 monest gnats have a similar taste for blood. 



62. Although, from what is related, there can 

 be no doubt that the blood of man is an acceptable 

 food to the mosquito, yet it is remarkable that 

 the greatest multitudes of these creatures inhabit 

 those bleak, inhospitable, and almost inaccessible 

 regions where the foot of man seldom treads, and 

 where other warm-blooded animals are scarcely 

 known to exist. 



63. It is clearly ascertained that the female 

 mosquitoes alone suck the blood of man ; the 

 males spend their lives among the leaves of trees, 

 or settle on flowers, from which they appear to 

 derive nutriment ; it is therefore far from impos- 

 sible that, in the failure of animal, the females also 

 may have recourse to vegetable nutriment. 



