Mosquito people

“ The English youth makes haste to range himself with the “old timers” and will lie to you abominably to convey the impression that he is no longer a tenderfoot (though a Gringo he must ever be) , and tell you that the mosquitoes never touch him, while you can see him scratching his latest bite! The fact is that some people are more subject than others to mosquito bite and there are many thousands of native-born who never outgrow the susceptibility. I sincerely sympathise with all such, as the mosquito has the power to make their lives a misery for at least six months of the year. ”

“ How does fighting flies mean safety first?
[Pg 206]
Breeding Places
HOW TO FIGHT MOSQUITOES
If you have mosquitoes in your own home you may be sure that there is a mosquito breeding place very near you. Perhaps it is in your own house or yard, or at least within your own block. Such places are overlooked because people do not know that any puddle of water, no matter how small, makes a fine breeding place for these midget murderers.
Mosquitoes must have still water to breed in. Therefore if there is no standing water there will be no mosquitoes. ”

“ Frank asked Manuel how the natives, who had no nets, managed to get along in the height of the mosquito season.
AN INDIAN OF NORTHERN BOLIVIA.
[Pg 283] "They get along very badly," was the reply. "One plan is to cover their bodies with oil, which the mosquitoes don't like, but it does not drive them away. Smudging or smoking keeps them down, but then it is almost as bad for the people as for the mosquitoes. Sometimes they bury themselves in the sand, leaving only the head exposed ”

“ The draining now commenced, and the expert and the Mosquito Man were of the same stripe. The work was completed in six weeks. Just about this time people stopped calling the Mosquito Man "a bug," and the members of the Country Club even tried to make him talk mosquitoes to them, while the sail-maker felt sure that his $5 had done the whole job. Hammocks were swung out in the yards—and a hammock hung outside of the screens is the barometer of the mosquito condition.
The Mosquito Man was feeling very satisfied the night he went to a dance at the Country Club. ”

“ It is often mistaken by ignorant people for the mosquito and at once destroyed, but quite unfairly, as the species is in reality perfectly harmless, frequently benefiting mankind by the removal of considerable quantities of effete matter, which if allowed to remain could not fail to be injurious. ”

“ I would like to exchange postage stamps with any correspondent.
R. L. Preston,
P. O. Box 327, Lynchburg, Virginia.
Louise.—Your question, "Is the mosquito of any use in the great economy of nature?" has often been asked by many older and wiser than you, for it is not generally known that in their larval state mosquitoes form an important branch of nature's army of tiny scavengers. The larvæ live in the water of stagnant pools and marshes, and feed upon particles of decaying matter, and as their number is so very large, the amount they devour is considerable. ”

“ Writing of mosquitos, let me say these Indian specimens were a terror to us all. What numbers we killed! I could write this account in their blood. It was my blood, though—before they got it! Men who hunt the tiger in cool bravery boiled with indignation before these awful pests, which stabbed and stung with marvellous persistency, and disturbed the solitude of nature with their incessant humming. I write the word incessant advisedly, for I learned that there are several kinds of mosquitos. Some work by day and others by night. Naturalists tell us that only the female mosquito bites. ”

“ These bristles serve to puncture the skin of the creature attacked, while the curled lip serves as a tube through which the blood may be extracted.
If, while sitting on the porch on a warm summer evening, mosquitoes begin to annoy, let one of them at least serve to show his method of procedure before he is destroyed. Allow the creature to alight upon the back of your hand and slowly raise the arm until the eye looking at near range can see the head of the mosquito, which, by the way, is sure to be a female. Males in this species are entirely harmless. They never eat after they have grown up ”

“ Then no one could predict the appearance of the parasite within the body of the mosquito—if it were there—or in what part of the body it should be looked for. The mosquito had to be searched cell by cell. The difficulty of dissecting a mosquito is great even in temperate climes, and when we recollect that hundreds of all the available species were dissected in the most malarious districts in India, we must recognize that it was only a faith akin to that which moves mountains which sustained the courage and stimulated the perseverance of the tireless worker. ”

“ Then it would be possible to believe the statement of the Government's entomologist that not "one mosquito in a million" ever gets the opportunity to taste the blood of a warm-blooded animal. As proof of this there are, in this country, great tracts of marshy land never frequented by warm-blooded animals, and in which mosquitoes are breeding in countless numbers. The point is emphasized by the prevalence of mosquitoes in the arctic circle and other uninhabited regions. ”

“ The scows have their noses poked into the bank, the men have built smudge fires in front, but we decide that the best way to escape the mosquito is to go to bed. We lie down in the stern-sheets with our clothes on, make night-caps of our Stetson hats, pull the veils down over our necks, and try to sleep, but it is no avail. Each one of these mosquitoes is a Presbyterian mosquito and it has been ordained that this night he is to taste of white blood. It rains incessantly, and that hot hole in which we lie is one brown cloud of mosquitoes. ”

“ Sunk in a cushioned armchair, his slippered feet on the desk, a bottle of cooling ginger pop in one hand and a cream puff in the other, he placed before his imagination the problem:
"Why the mosquito?"
The more he pondered the more he became impressed with the fact that here indubitably was one of the errors of the Almighty. Snakes destroyed rats and mice at least, but what earthly purpose was served by mosquitoes? ”

“ One's sympathies are all with the mosquito so far. There is no hell like unsatisfied longings; and if one good long drink of blood means one more mosquito happy, only a churl would grudge it. What one does feel that one has a right to demand is that mosquitoes should study to have "a good bedside manner." This is just what they lack. One would find it hard to forgive a dentist who, forceps in hand, danced a wild cancan before you as you writhed in anticipation in his chair. Yet this, in effect, is just what the Dervish mosquito does. ”

“ The whole problem of successful campaigns against the mosquitoes resolves itself into the problem of finding and destroying or properly treating their breeding-places. We have seen how certain kinds, such as the yellow fever mosquito, are "domestic" species. They never go far from their breeding-places. If a house is infected by one of these species the immediate premises should be searched for the source. Cisterns, rain-barrels, sewer-traps, cesspools, tubs or buckets of water or old tin cans in out-of-the-way corners, are all suitable places for them to breed in. ”

“ And then her bedroom became a limb of a tree and there she was transforming into an adult female mosquito and he was becoming a male one. There they both were in complete maturity. He did his dance and he rubbed his legs so as to attract her with his sound. She was ceramic in her stiffness. Her skin was ochre like the dead bodies at the Siriaj Hospital museum sunk into their glass caskets of formaldehyde. Yet her eyes were lively even though they looked at him so askance and distant. She smiled with her closed insect lips. ”

“ This has long been recognized by natives who travel through it freely between sunrise and sunset. The only permanent inhabitants of the region are persons who have recovered from the disease. The borders are sharply defined within a few yards of altitude.
For some years it has been recognized that the infection comes from the bite of a single species of sand fly—a vicious pest smaller than a mosquito. Protection is afforded only by special screens. Ordinary mosquito netting is worthless. The death belt is a place of bright sunshine nearly every day. The insects cannot endure light. ”

“ There are hundreds of species of mosquitoes, some small, some large. The majority of these are unable to carry disease so far as we know at present, but they should be avoided as dangerous. The Missouri forms which carry disease are the so-called malarial fever mosquitoes, and they are entirely responsible for the transmission of this sapping and often fatal disease. In the warm countries these are more abundant and the fever is more fatal. In the south there is still another disease-carrying mosquito, the yellow fever mosquito. ”

“ Mosquito is not willing to cease making his claim for the unfulfilled promise; and is always coming to our ears, and buzzing and crying. Always Mosquito comes and says, "I want my oil, Bz-z-z-z." But Ear remains silent, and gives no answer. And Mosquito keeps on grumbling and complaining, and gets angry and bites. ”

“ When ready to [Pg 204] change to the adult mosquito the pupa (which, unlike the wriggler, is lighter than water) floats at the surface of the water, back uppermost. The chitinous cuticle splits along the back and the delicate mosquito comes out, rests on the floating pupal skin until its wings are dry, and then flies away. Only the female mosquitoes suck blood. If they cannot find animals, mosquitoes live on the juices of plants. They are world-wide in their distribution, being serious pests even in Arctic regions, where they are often intolerably numerous and greedy. ”

“ One is the mosquito, and the other is fleas.”
The boys laughed.
“Not animals, Ibee; insects,” corrected Miss Helpem. [56] “We will not have time to speak at length of the mosquito, for that would make a whole lesson in itself, but I do want to say that mosquitoes are the cause of some of our worst diseases, for they carry disease germs from one person’s blood into another’s. To destroy them, kerosene oil should be sprayed or sprinkled or poured on the surface of any stagnant water; for mosquito babies (wigglers) live in stagnant (standing) water. ”

“ There is now a world-wide crusade against mosquitoes, extending from the wilds of Africa through the noted malarial districts of Italy to America. In America a National Mosquito Extermination Society has been formed. ”

“ There are mosquito-nets on the windows, of course, but they seem merely to annoy those birds of prey, and exacerbate their naturally hasty temper. After being obliged to bite his way through two or three folds of pink or blue gauze, no wonder a mosquito sits on your pillow and shrieks insanely in your ear what he is going to do to you. ”

“ But the practicability of this will depend on circumstances—especially, I think, on the species of mosquito with which we wish to deal. In my experience, different species select different habitations for their larvæ. Thus the common "brindled mosquitoes" breed almost entirely in pots and tubs of water; the common "gray mosquitoes" only in cisterns, ditches, and drains; while the rarer "spotted-winged mosquitoes" seem to choose only shallow rain-water puddles and ponds too large to dry up under a week or more, and too small or too foul and stagnant for minnows. ”

“ In an hospital, nothing is more annoying than these flies; sleep by day is sometimes entirely out of the question, unless the patient covers his face, which is by no means agreeable on a hot day. Mosquitoes, too, are troublesome customers to a stranger, for they seem to prefer the blood of a stranger to that of any one else. The mosquito is a beautiful, feathery-horned midge, with long airy legs, and a body and wings that tremble with their very fineness and grace. ”

“ Nothing could save one from the attacks of the mosquitoes. Almost all other insects went to rest with the sun: sandflies, which bit viciously during the day, went to sleep at night; the large bulldog, whose bite is terrible, slumbered in the evening; but the mosquito, the long-legged, determined, vicious, persevering mosquito, whose ceaseless hum dwells for ever in the ear, never went to sleep! ”

“ If there be anything worse than a mosquito humming about you, it is to have two of them; but one is enough to keep you lively, and furnish you with incessant employment; and where one is, there are generally plenty more. Apparently the mosquito, like the king, never dies, for as fast as one is slain another reigns in his stead. ”

“ But they are not altogether unwelcome in a house, because they help to keep down the population of the insect world. There is a handsome little spider who spins no web, and roves about, and springs on its victim like a tiger.
Mosquitoes are the most troublesome insects to be found in the tropics, although some districts are much more infested than others. There are several different kinds. The one that causes the most irritation is smaller than the average English gnat. They are veritable bloodsuckers, and the amount of blood which a mosquito can imbibe is astonishing. ”