MOSQUITOES OF ALASKA 139 
off a dense smoke. I have seen telegraph operators ticking messages out at 
isolated stations with their heads in a cloud of smoke from a smudge in a bucket 
under the table, while mosquitoes hummed thick everywhere except in the im- 
mediate vicinity. 
“Stock has to be well protected in summer from their bites. I have seen and 
heard of numerous cases where the poor animals have been driven frantic 
from bites when not protected with empty gunny-sacks or nets of some kind. 
The mosquitoes alight on the animals in such swarms as to entirely change the 
color of the hide. Anything with blood seems to be a sweet morsel, and mosqui- 
toes seem to race to see which shall be the first at it and the last to leave it. 
“The Alaskan mosquitoes are huge, fierce, aggressive, and extraordinarily 
persevering, and stop at nothing, for I have been well bitten through the pores 
of my buckskin gauntlets. 
“ When steamers stop at a wood-pile to ‘ wood-up’ the deck hands wrap their 
heads up, leaving only the face exposed, and consequently only one spot to de- 
fend, and each will move with his own attentive following in a dense and close 
formation around his devoted head. 
“The use of head-nets—a form of mosquito bar which is worn over the head 
and comes down on the shoulders—is very common except in the timber, but it 
is a fine scheme for torture if it gets torn, for the mosquitoes are always on the 
alert unless prevented by rain, wind or smoke. The Indian smears his face, 
neck and hands with a thick coating of mud and uses a smudge. 
“ In Rex Beach’s good story, ‘ The Barrier, his killing a man with mosquitoes 
is by no means far-fetched, for one can well imagine a man being stung to death 
by the pests when left bound for insect slaughter. Personally I heard of a pros- 
pector in the Inuoko country who had lost his bearings and wandered around in 
the brush and timber with no means of warding off the attacks of mosquitoes, 
and when found he was a raving maniac and never recovered. The Jersey 
branch of the family is a mild suggestion compared with the Alaskan branch. 
In Alaska the mosquito seems to breed in the tundra, brush, trees, anywhere 
where there is moisture. The clearing off of the brush seems to lessen the swarms 
in the immediate vicinity. I have watched a ball game at Fairbanks, standing in 
the smoke of a smudge, and after the sun set, 10.30 p. m., was driven to cover 
by them. They are as bad on the coast as in the interior, in the old settlements 
as in the new, and are generally warred upon without seeming effect.” 
