EARLY ACCOUNTS OF MOSQUITOES. 
MOSQUITOES AS PESTS. 
The old writer, Thomas Moufet, collected from early writings accounts of 
mosquito abundance, from which it appears that Herodotus noted that these 
insects swarmed in prodigious numbers in old Egypt and that the natives of 
marshy regions built towers on which to sleep, since the mosquitoes did not fly 
high. Mosquito nets and canopies were in use in those early days. The army 
of Julian the Apostate on one occasion was so fiercely attacked by mosquitoes 
as to be driven back. In ancient Greece, according to Pausanias, the inhabitants 
of cities were sometimes forced to abandon their homes on account of mosquitoes 
making it impossible for them to remain. Mionte, a rich city of Ionia, was 
abandoned by its inhabitants on account of mosquitoes which forced them to flee 
to Mileta. The same thing happened with Pergamo, a beautiful city in Asia. 
Sapor, King of Persia, according to Theodoritus, was compelled to raise the siege 
of Nisibis by a plague of gnats which attacked his elephants and beasts of burden 
and so caused the rout of his army. 
Ammianus Marcellinus, in his Roman History, in discussing the wild beasts 
of Mesopotamia, gives the following paragraph on lions versus mosquitoes 
(quoted from Cowan) : 
“ The lions wander in countless droves among the beds of rushes on the banks 
of the rivers of Mesopotamia and in the jungles, and lie quiet all the winter, 
which is very mild in that country. But when the warm weather returns, as 
these regions are exposed to great heat, they are forced out by the vapours, and by 
the size of the Gnats, with swarms of which every part of that country is filled. 
And these winged insects attack the eyes, as being both moist and sparkling, 
sitting on and biting the eyelids ; the lions, unable to bear the torture, are either 
drowned in the rivers, to which they flee for refuge, or else, by frequent scratch- 
ings, tear their eyes out themselves with their claws, and then become mad. And 
if this did not happen, the whole of the East would be overrun with beasts of this 
kind.” 
Pliny, in his natural history, speaks of mosquitoes and in referring to their 
humming noise says (freely translated) : “ Who gave the mosquito so terrifying 
a voice, infinitely greater than it should be in comparison to the size of its 
body?” He distinguished the Hymenoptera from the Diptera by stating that 
the former have the sting in the tail and the latter in the mouth, and that to 
the one it is given as an instrument of vengeance and to the other of avidity. 
About 1736 Culex pipiens became so numerous in England that, as described 
by John Swinton, vast columns of them were seen to rise in the air from the 
steeple of the cathedral at Salisbury, which, at a little distance, resembled 
columns of smoke and caused many people to think that the cathedral was on 
fire. In the same account it is stated that in the year 1766, in the month of 
August, they appeared in such incredible numbers at Oxford as to resemble a 
black cloud darkening the air and almost intercepting the rays of the sun. On 
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