THE TUNDRA AND ITS ANIMAL LIFE. 83 



when the wind is more violent all the members of the swarm strain 

 themselves to the utmost so as not to lose their victim, and pounce 

 like pricking hailstones on head and neck. Before he knows, he 

 is covered from head to foot with mosquitoes. In a dense swarm, 

 blackening gray clothes, giving dark ones a strange spotted appear- 

 ance, they settle down and creep slowly about, looking for an 

 unappropriated spot from which to suck blood. They creep noise- 

 lessly and without being felt to the unprotected face and neck, the 

 bare hands and the feet covered only with stockings, and a moment 

 later they slowly sink their sting into the skin, and pour the irritant 

 poison into the wound. Furiously the victim beats the blood-sucker 

 to a pulp, but while the chastising hand still moves, three, four, ten 

 other gnats fasten on it, while others begin work on the face, neck," 

 and feet, ready to do exactly as the slain ones had done. For when 

 blood has once flowed, when several insects have met their death on 

 the same place, all the rest seek out that very spot, even though the 

 surface becomes gradually covered with bodies. Specially favourite 

 points of attack are the temples, the forehead just under the hat- 

 brim, the neck and the wrist, places, in short, which can be least 

 well protected. 



If an observer can so far restrain himself as to watch them at 

 their work of blood, without driving them away or disturbing them, 

 he notices that neither their settling nor their moving about is 

 felt in the least. Immediately after alighting they set to work. 

 Leisurely they walk up and down on the skin, carefully feeling 

 it with their proboscis; suddenly they stand still and with sur- 

 prising ease pierce the skin. While they suck, they lift one of the 

 hind-legs and wave it with evident satisfaction backwards and 

 forwards, the more emphatically the more the translucent body 

 becomes filled with blood. As soon as they have tasted blood they 

 pay no heed to anything else, and seem scarcely to feel though 

 they are molested and tortured. If one draws the proboscis out of 

 the wound with forceps, they feel about for a moment, and then 

 bore again in the same or a new place; if one cuts the proboscis 

 quickly through with sharp scissors, they usually remain still as 

 if they must think for a minute, then pass the forelegs gently over 



