g66 Mlarvels of the Universe 
swampy districts, like the Sandarbans of Bengal, it is laterally compressed, and thus serves as 
an efficient swimming instrument. The great Indo-Malay species—generally known in Bengal, 
in common with other lizards, as Go-samp—will, indeed, take readily to the water, and has even 
been known when pursued on the seashore in the Sandarbans to plunge headlong into the surf 
and disappear. In the Bengal rice-fields these lizards abound, and when disturbed start off with 
a violent rush—much to the alarm of inexperienced snipe-shooters. 
Photo bu) i ; a j ji [A. A. White. 
GOULD’S MONITOR AND THE VARIABLE MONITOR. 
The whip-like tails of both these Australian Lizards indicate that they inhabit dry, sandy districts; those that frequent 
swampy neighbourhoods have the tail flattened from the sides to aid in swimming. 
GNATS AND MOSQUITOES 
BY K. G. BLAIR, B.SC., F.E.S. 
Every year, just about the holiday season, reports appear in the newspapers of the plague of 
Mosquitoes from which some well-known seaside resort is suffering, and visitors from the colonies 
or the tropics are said to assert that the insects in question are just the same as those which 
they know at home. Instead, however, of such cases being, as they are usually considered, abnor- 
mal, the Mosquito, like the poor, is always with us, though in private life he is called a Gnat. 
The Gnat is not a single species of fly, but one of a little group or family, the separate species of 
which are distinguishable only to the expert ; and the same family in other parts of the world is 
known as the Mosquito, a Spanish word, literally meaning a “ little fly” (Latin—musca, a fly). 
Gnats or Mosquitoes, whichever we like to call them, are always more abundant in swampy, 
marshy districts than in dry, well-drained countries, a circumstance which follows necessarily from 
the fact that they breed in stagnant pools ; for the same reason, also, a period of wet weather during 
the summer gives them an excellent opportunity for rapid and prolific reproduction, which, in due 
course, leads to their appearance in such numbers as to constitute a veritable plague. Indeed, it is 
not unlikely that the flies with which the Egyptians were plagued were Mosquitoes that had bred 
