18 MOSQUITOES OF NORTH AMERICA 
“ Bverything which moves about the head or the hands helps to chase the 
insects away. ‘The more you move, the less you are bitten, say the mission- 
aries. The zancudo buzzes a long time before alighting, but when it has gained 
confidence and has once commenced to insert its sucker and to suck blood one 
can touch its wings without frightening it. At this time it holds its two hind 
legs in the air, and if, without bothering it, one lets it suck its fill there is no 
swelling and no pain. We have often tried this experiment upon ourselves in the 
valley of the Rio de la Magdalena on the advice of the natives. One asks oneself 
whether the insect only injects the poison at the moment when it is frightened 
away, or if it sucks back the poison when it is allowed to suck as much as it will. 
I am inclined to the latter opinion, for, in allowing Culex cyanopterus to peace- 
ably bite the back of my hand, I noticed that the pain, very strong in the begin- 
ning, diminished as the insect continued to pump up the blood. It ceased 
absolutely at the moment when the sucking was finished. I tried also the experi- 
ment of wounding my skin with a pin and of rubbing the puncture with crushed 
gnats, but no inflammation followed. The irritating liquid of the nemocerous 
insects, in which chemists have not yet recognized any acid property, is con- 
tained, as with the ants and other hymenopterous insects, in special glands, and 
it is probably too dilute and in consequence too weak if one rubs the skin with 
all of the crushed insect.” 
If, in the above account, one has kept in mind that by the word “ mosquito” 
Humboldt designated Simulium, it will be seen that he clearly distinguished 
between the blood-sucking flies belonging to different families. 
In the account which follows, of the abundance of mosquitoes in southern 
Russia, by Jaeger, the Culicide and Simuliide were evidently not differen- 
tiated. Thus the statement of the mosquitoes entering the noses, mouths and 
ears of cattle and of causing the death of many of these animals, clearly applies 
to the Simuliide, the ravages of which, in that country, are well known. The 
account is nevertheless of interest. 
“ When traveling some years ago in the country of the Czernomorzi, or Cos- 
sacks of the Black Sea, we observed before each house of the different slanilzas 
or villages, of the Cossacks, large heaps of half dried manure ignited and smok- 
ing, which our driver informed us was for the purpose of keeping off the mos- 
quitoes. Toward evening, on a very hot June day, we ascended the right bank 
of the muddy and slowly-running River Kuban, on the left bank of which the 
independent Circassia stretched out before us, when suddenly swarms of small 
mosquitoes covered us, our servant, and driver, and horses, lighting upon us in 
lumps an inch thick, and, in spite of all the covering we could hastily throw 
over us, tormenting us excessively with their bites. 
“On the road, at a distance of every four or five versts (three or four English 
miles), we found a military post of about a dozen Cossacks, keeping themselves 
and their horses under ground, except one sentinel, who was standing upon a 
scaffold twelve feet high, in order to watch any inimical movements of the 
Circassians, to repulse their attacks, and, in case of one, to give notice of it to 
the two nearest posts by means of the ancient Persian telegraph, viz. : by igniting 
a bundle of straw, which was then fastened to the top of a high pole and elevated. 
At midnight our misery reached its climax. Though covered with a wide cloak, 
the mosquitoes entered every opening, and inflicted upon us such painful wounds 
that our faces were so swollen we could scarcely recognize one another. To our 
joy a large camp-fire was seen at some distance, which, according to the driver’s 
assurance, was the post-station, where fresh horses could be had. We arrived at 
