MOSQUITOES AND FLEAS. 17 



and have also been recorded as feeding upon insects. Dr. Hagen men- 

 tions taking a species in the Northwest feeding upon the chrysalis of a 

 butterfly, while scattered through the seven volumes of Insect Life are 

 a number of records of observations of a vegetarian habit, one writer 

 stating that he has seen them with their beaks inserted in boiled 

 potatoes on the table, and another that he has seen watermelon rinds 

 with many mosquitoes settled upon them and busily engaged in sucking 

 the juices. Mosquitoes undoubtedly feed normally on the juices of 

 plants, and not one in a million ever gets an opportunity to taste the 

 blood of a warm-blooded animal. When we think of the enormous 

 tracts of marsh land into which warm-blooded animals never pene- 

 trate, and in which mosquitoes are breeding in countless numbers, the 

 truth of this statement becomes apparent. The males have been 

 observed sipping at drops of Water, and one instance of a fondness for 

 molasses has been recorded. Mr. E. A. Schwarz has observed one 

 drinking beer. 



The literature of popular entomology is full of instances of the enor- 

 mous numbers in which mosquitoes occasionally occur, but a new 

 instance may not be out of place here. Mr. Schwarz tells the writer 

 that he has never seen, even in New Jersey, mosquitoes to compare in 

 numbers with those at Corpus Christi, Tex. When the wind blows from 

 any other direction than south, he says, hundreds of thousands of mil- 

 lions of mosquitoes blow in upon the town. Great herds of hundreds 

 of horses run before the mosquitoes in order to get to the water. With 

 a change of wind, however, the mosquitoes blow away. 



REMEDIES AGAINST MOSQUITOES. 



Of the remedies in use in houses the burning of pyrethrum powder 

 and the catching of the mosquitoes on the walls with kerosene in cups, 

 as described in Insect Life (Vol. V, p. 143), are probably the best, next 

 to a thorough screening and mosquito bars about the bed. It may be of 

 interest to mention incidentally a remedy in use among the Chinese, as 

 recorded in Eobert Fortune's "Residence Among the Chinese: Scenes 

 and Adventures Among the Chinese in 1853-1856" (London, 1857). 

 Long-necked bags of paper, half an inch in diameter and 2 feet long, are 

 filled with the following substances: Either pine or juniper sawdust, 

 mixed with a small quantity of "nu-wang" and 1 ounce of arsenic. 

 These substances are well mixed and run into the bags in a dry state; 

 each bag is coiled like a snake and wrapped and tied with thread. The 

 outer end is lighted and the coil laid on a board. Two coils are suffi- 

 cient for an ordinary-sized room, and 100 coils sell for 6 cents. Mr. 

 MunYenChung, of the Chinese legation, has been good enough to inform 

 the writer that by "nu-wang" Mr. Fortune probably meant liu-wang 

 (brimstone). 



Altogether the most satisfactory ways of lighting mosquitoes are 

 those which result in the destruction of the larva' or the abolition of 

 2805— No. 1 2 



