102 THE UNIVERSE. 



constraint of such a kind of life, remain constantly envel- 

 oped in the midst of thick smoke. For this purpose they 

 set up regular roosts formed of branches, and suspended 

 above masses of wood which burn perpetually beneath 

 them. Squatted on these they receive their friends during 

 the day, and at night, heated from below and smoked on 

 all sides, they stretch themselves on them in order to 

 sleep. ^ 



Some savage races only free themselves from the on- 

 slaughts of this accursed brood by smearing their bodies 

 with a filthy covering of grease ; and it is to protect him- 

 self against them that the miserable Laplander condemns 

 himself to be smoked all day long in his dark hut. The 

 companions of the astronomer Maupertuis were so tor- 

 mented by the stings of the mosquitoes during their travels 



the organ within its sheath to press upon the skin, into which it presently enters, 

 the sheath remaining without and bending into an angle as the lancets descend. 

 When the weapon has penetrated to its base — a distance of one-sixth of an inch 

 or more — the lancets move laterally, and thus cut the flesh on either side, pro- 

 moting the flow of blood from the superficial vessels ; at the same moment a 

 highlj^ irritative fluid is jioiired into the wound, which has the effect of diluting 

 the blood, and thus of rendering it more capable of flowing up the slender central 

 tube into the throat of the insect. It then sucks, if undisturbed, till its stomach 

 is filled to repletion, leaving a painful tumour accompanied with an intolerable 

 itching. It is the female gnat alone which is noxious ; the male, whose proboscis 

 is feathered, has no power of sucking blood. — Gosse. 



^ A well-known German traveller, F. .Jjiger, in his Slcetches of Travels in 

 Singapore, Malacca, Java (Berlin, 1866), describes the power of the Pijrethrum 

 roseum (one of the Feverfews) as a specific against all noxious insects, including 

 the troublesome mosquitoes and those which attack collections. He says: — "A 

 tincture prepared liy macerating one part of the P. roseum in four parts of dilute 

 alcohol, and when diluted with ten times its bulk of water, applied to any part 

 of the body, gives perfect security against all vermin. I often passed the night 

 in my boat on the ill-reputed rivers of Siam without any other cover, even 

 without the netting, and experienced not the slightest inconvenience. The 

 'Ijuzziug,' at other times so great a disturber of sleep, becomes a harmless tune, 

 and, in the feeling of security, a real cradle song. In the chase, moistening the 

 beard and hands protects the hunter against flies for at least twelve hours, even 

 in spite of the largely increased respiration due to the climate. Especially inter- 



