Mosquito

“ But biting is the dominating note of a mosquito, and we may as well consider, to begin with, how it bites.
If we examine the head of a mosquito we shall find that it is shaped like a circular cushion bearing two enormous eyes—so large that in the male they touch above the forehead and almost meet below the chin. Each eye consists of hundreds of facets of a brilliant green hue, set in a darkish background, like emeralds arranged on a black surface. The head also bears a quantity of hairs and flattened scales whose number, shape, and arrangement are of considerable systematic value. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The wings of the harmless mosquito are usually mottled, while the wings of the malarial mosquito are of an even color. The details of the behavior of the parasite on its long journey from the original malarial patient through the body of the mosquito and into the body of the person bitten is full of interest to the scientist, who must, however, be provided with a good microscope to follow such minute bodies; but the methods of avoiding the disease are more pertinent to our present purpose. ”

“ At the end of two days out of the pupa skin comes a grown-up mosquito. If it is a Mrs. Mosquito, she promptly begins to bite people and to carry about fevers or malaria from person to person. The bite of a mosquito may sometimes be as dangerous as the bite of a rattlesnake."
The children had been slapping the mosquitoes buzzing about on the piazza. "And now," said the guide, "before we go into supper, I will tell you a real and a true story. Mosquitoes sometimes carry sickness from one person to another until it spreads throughout a large city. ”

“ The mosquito larva, therefore, can breathe only when the tip of its respiratory tube projects above the surface of the water, and, though an aquatic creature, it can be drowned by long submergence. Yet the provision for breathing at the surface has a distinct advantage: it renders the mosquito larva independent of the aeration of the water it inhabits, and allows a large number of larvae to thrive
[33 OE ]
MOSQUITOES in a small quantity of water, provided the latter contains sufficient food material. ”

“ With the disappearance of the sun the mosquito makes his appearance in countless myriads, and his hum resounds through the entire period of darkness. The air swarms with these pests, and on a still night life is made a burden by their attentions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Before describing the method by which infection takes place, it is well to say a few words concerning the mosquito that acts as a carrier of the disease, which may be easily differentiated from other similar gnats. The malarial mosquito has a body which is placed parallel to and almost on the same plane with the front portions of the insect, and as a consequence, when at rest on walls or other objects, the back of the body sticks out almost or quite at right angles with the surface upon which it is resting. ”

“ While the baby mosquito is brought up in the water, he is an air-breather and comes to the top to breathe as do frogs and musk-rats and many other water creatures of a higher order.
Like most babies the mosquito larva believes that his mission is to eat as much as he can and grow up very fast. This he does, and if the weather is warm and the food abundant, he soon outgrows his skin. He proceeds to grow a new skin underneath the old one, and when he finds himself protected, he bursts out of his old clothes and comes out in a spring suit. ”

“ Whenever baby is out of doors where mosquitoes, flies, or other insects are to be found, he should be properly protected from such pests by mosquito netting stretched over a frame eighteen inches above his face, for we can think of nothing more uncomfortable than a mosquito netting dragging over a sweaty baby's face. ”

“ Inasmuch as a generation of mosquitoes appear to torment man within ten days, at the longest, after the eggs are laid; as a batch laid by a female mosquito contains from two hundred to four hundred eggs; as from each egg may issue a larva or wriggler which in six days will be an adult mosquito on the wing—it is to the destruction of the larvæ that attention should be directed. The larva is a slender organism, white or gray in color, comprising eight segments. The last of these parts is in the form of a tube, through which the wriggler breathes. ”

“ Réaumur and {467}others believed that some irritating fluid is injected by the Mosquito when it bites. But why should it want to irritate as well as to bite? Macloskie, considering that the Mosquito is really a feeder on plant-substances, suggests that the fluid injected may be for the purpose of preventing coagulation of the plant-juices during the process of suction. It is a rule that only the female Mosquito bites, the male being an inoffensive creature, and provided with less effectual mouth-organs; it has, however, been stated by various authors that male Mosquitoes do occasionally bite. ”

“ When a malarious person is bitten by a mosquito, the gametes are taken with the blood into its stomach. Here a flagellum from the male unites with the female, which soon thereafter becomes encysted in the wall of the intestine. After a time it ruptures, liberating many minute rods, or sporozoites, which have formed within it. These migrate to the salivary glands, and are carried into the blood of the person whom the mosquito bites. Here they enter red corpuscles as young malarial parasites, and the majority pass through the asexual cycle just described. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If you never saw mosquitoes in convention, you want to go over there. And right here we will give a recipe for keeping mosquitoes from biting. You take some cedar oil and put on your coat collar, if you are a man, and if you are a woman put it on that gingerbread work around your neck, and a mosquito will come up and sing to you and get all ready to take toll, when she will smell that oil. She is the sickest mosquito you ever saw. ”

“ It is called a mosquito—pronounced moskeeto—and it is, perhaps, the most tormenting, the most persevering, savage, vicious little monster on the face of the earth. Other flies go to sleep at night; the mosquito never does. Darkness puts down other flies—it seems to encourage the mosquito. ”

“ When the mosquito bites an infested person, his proboscis removes some embryo filariæ, which are quickly transferred to its stomach. Some of these escape digestion, develop within the mosquito, and when the mosquito dies in water they bore their way out, and are subsequently swallowed by man.
It is essential, therefore, in order to prevent this disease to boil or efficiently filter all drinking water, and to prevent the access of279 mosquitoes to water. Persons infested with filariæ should sleep inside mosquito nets, in order that they may not, when bitten by mosquitoes, spread the disease. ”

“ It is also manifest that the purpose of the "sheath" with which it is provided while circulating in the human host is to muzzle the young filaria and prevent its breaking through the blood-vessels, and thereby missing its chance of gaining access to the mosquito. The cephalic armature is adapted for piercing the walls of the mosquito's stomach, and for enabling the parasite to travel through the tissues of the insect. ”

“ As soon, however, as the warm weather comes round and the mosquito becomes active and again begins to bite there is evidence that it still maintains its power of transmitting infection; indeed Boyce states that mosquito's infected in one year are capable of transmitting infection and starting a fresh epidemic in the following warm season. When it is remembered that a mosquito by a single bite is capable of setting up an attack of the disease, we see how important is this question. ”

“ The adult mosquito may have a short life, but it is a life crammed full of interest; if the natural food of the mosquito is the sweet juice of a pretty flower then a lot of them in this latitude are imperilling their digestion on an unnatural commissariat. And if the female mosquitoes do all the fine work, there is a great scarcity of male mosquitoes on Smith's portage, and once more in the North the suffragette comes into her own. ”

“ MOSQUITOES, BLACK FLIES, AND MIDGE.
These pests will annoy you exceedingly almost everywhere in the summer. In the daytime motion and perspiration keep them off to some extent. At night, or when lying down, you can do no better than to cover yourself so that they cannot reach your body, and have a mosquito-bar of some sort over your head. The simplest thing is a square yard of mosquito-netting thrown over the head, and tucked in well. ”

“ When the mosquito alights, with its peculiar hum, it thrusts in its keen lance, and then enlarges the aperture with the two saws, which play beside the lance, until the forked bill, with its capillary arrangement for pumping blood, can be inserted. The sawing process is what grates upon the nerves of the victim, and causes him to strike wildly at the sawyer. The irritation of a mosquito's bite is undoubtedly owing to these saws. It is to be hoped that the mosquito keeps her surgical instruments clean, otherwise it might be a means of propagating blood diseases. ”

“ Study of the mosquito indispensable.——Full knowledge of all that concerns the etiology of the disease will only be attained when we have full knowledge of the various species of mosquito capable of subserving the germ, of certain vertebrates which may be capable of taking the place of man in the malarial cycle, of their geographical distribution, of their habits, and of their enemies. ”

“ Mosquito (Cidex pipiens) .—Another dipterous insect which frequents our dwellings is the common mosquito, an insect too well known to need any description. During the season a female will lay about three hundred eggs in several litters. These eggs are deposited in standing water, running water being free from them on account of the danger of the mosquito being drowned when emerging from its pupa-case, which serves as a sort of raft until the wings and legs are strong enough to support the perfect insect. ”

“ 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. ”