220 INSECTS 



wildly on the floor outside. I have seen strong 

 men turn pale as they rushed from the room, one 

 hand clutching nervously at the breast or shoulder 

 of the snow-white dinner jacket to hold prisoner 

 for a season that which was beneath. AU this we 

 owe to the cockroach, even as we owe our scarified 

 book-bindings, gumless envelopes, ruined starched 

 things and tainted food. Could there be anything 

 more mischievous, more malicious, than this mal- 

 odorous quintessence of foulness ? 



I must confess that, try as I may, I cannot 

 awaken to that condition of mind which professes 

 to see strange beauties and graces in the insect 

 abominations with which poor Africa is so richly, 

 so undeservedly endowed. In the early weeks of 

 the rains or summer season the land teems with 

 myriads of these creatures, which, with youth on 

 their side, and the natural yearning for the com- 

 mission of sins so unfailingly a characteristic of 

 that bright period, make life to humanity one long, 

 painful purgatory, ruinous to patience and temper 

 alike. 



Take for example the Mosquito. I do not 

 know, neither does it much matter, how many 

 varieties of this murderous gnat there may be. I 

 seem to have seen fully a dozen or more. These 

 leave you no peace from the moment they secure 

 ingress to your habitation, either by night or day. 

 Then think of the countless blood-sucking forms 

 of other kinds, the Diptera, Glossinse, Leptidge, 

 Muscida;, and several others, to say nothing of 

 wingless blood-suckers such as the Ticks. The 

 present known forms obtaining a hving by this 



