PIPERS AND MINNESINGERS 7 



Where each man walks with his head in a cloud 

 of poisonous flies." 



Shakespeare alludes to them several times in much 

 the same spirit. 



Of all the members of the families of flies, the 

 mosquito has received most personal attention from 

 the poets; perhaps because she has been lavish in 

 personal attentions to them. Bryant has deemed her 

 vrorthy of a separate poem, in which he recognizes 

 her as a fellow-singer : — 



"Thou'rt welcome to the town; but why oome here 

 To bleed a brother poet, gaunt like thee ? 

 Alas, the little blood I have is dear, 



And thin will be the banquet drawn from me." 



How much we might enjoy the song of the mosquito 

 if it were not associated with the unwilling yielding 

 of blood to the singer is problematical. Perhaps if 

 Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony were always to be 

 played in our hearing when we were occupying the 

 dentist's chair, we would soon become averse to its 

 exquisite harmonies. Therefore it is no wonder that 

 we do not think of music at all when we hear the 

 distant horn of the mosquito ; instead, we listen .with 

 patient exasperation as the sound grows louder, and 

 we wait nervously for the final sharp " zzzzz " which 

 announces that the audacious singer has selected a 



