THERE is nothing in the appearance of the mosquito to excite alarm even in the most timid breasts, no sign of his almost diabolical nature, or of his power of making himself obnoxious. And yet he is endowed with a subtlety, a malice, and a fiendish thirst for blood unparalleled save in the leech. The mosquito is found in almost every climate and country, sounding his trumpet as vehemently by the shores of the Arctic Sea as beside a sluggish stream on the Equator, the British Islands being almost alone in their happy immunity from its presence; and among all the varied blessings for which a Briton has cause to be thankful there is scarcely one so peculiar and so marked as the absence of this creature. It is probably seen at its worst in the north of Russia, Norway and Sweden, and in some of the Northern States of America. In these countries it is hardly safe to leave a horse out at night, for although we may safely discredit the legends that horses have been carried off bodily by mosquitoes, these animals have undoubtedly been killed by the poisonous bites of their innumerable foes. It is the methods of the mosquito rather than the injury it inflicts that drive men to madness. It is not that they are greatly grudged the drop or two of blood they extract, and the pain and inflammation of the wound, though often considerable, are not very much more so than those of our own midnight assailants, the bug and the flea. If they would but come and have their meal in peace and quiet, man might bear it. It is their shrill trumpeting, their approaches and departures, and the long and agonising suspense that precedes the moment when, their investigation complete, they fix on what appears to them the most penetrable point, settle, and begin their meal, that cows the spirit of the bravest man. Heroes who would face the spring of an infuriated tiger, and lead a column to the cannon’s mouth, will quail and cover their head with the sheet when they hear the shrill challenge of the mosquito.

Man has endeavoured by many means to defend himself from this persecutor. He has rubbed himself with medicaments, and has hung up boughs of shrubs to which it is supposed that the mosquito has an objection. He has invented pastilles, whose smoke, it was hoped, would lull his foe into a lethargy; but at all these and similar measures the mosquito laughs. The only resource affording even a partial protection is the mosquito curtain. In theory this device is excellent. Man enclosed within a curtain of gauze ought to be unassailable. Unfortunately the practice does not follow the theory. However secure the curtains, however great the pains bestowed in seeing that no mosquito was present when the man was tucked up inside them, we doubt whether history records a single example of complete success having attended the arrangement. Do what man will, the mosquito will be there. Its favourite plan is to be beforehand with a man, and to hide somewhere until man has entered his muslin tent. Every effort will, it knows, be made to dislodge it; the curtains will be shaken, towels will be flapped here and there, every nook and corner will, as it seems, be examined, but the mosquito will manage in one way or other to evade the search. But even in the exceptional cases where it is routed out, the mosquito knows that it is but for a time. If there is a hole in the curtains, be it only the size of a knitting-needle, it will find it and get through; and in the event of the curtains being absolutely new, it is sure to find some point at which the tucking up has been imperfectly done. But most of all it relies upon entering with the would-be sleeper. The latter is well aware of this. He listens first for the sound of wings, but at this moment the mosquito is discreetly silent. Then he untucks a small portion of the curtain, his attendant flaps a towel wildly, and under cover of this he plunges hastily through the orifice, which is at once closed behind him. Then, in spite of a thousand similar experiences, the man flatters himself that this time he has evaded the mosquito, and lies down to rest. Stronger and stronger grows the hope as the minutes pass on, and at last it almost blooms into certainty as he finally turns over and composes himself for sleep. Drowsiness steals over him, when, just as consciousness is leaving him, the mosquito sounds a triumphant bugle-blast close to his ear. Then the ordinary man sits up in bed as if he were shot, and swears. This is, unfortunately, all but universal. The best and most patient of men have found it absolutely impossible to avoid using bad language at this crisis. There is a shout for the attendant, a light is brought and placed on a table near the curtain. Then the battle begins in grim earnest, the man against the mosquito; the one silent and watchful, his arms outside the sheet ready for instant action, the other, agile, ubiquitous, intent on exasperating and not on attacking its victim, now resting for a time in a corner, then making a rapid dash at the nose or ear, then disappearing again, and lying silent for some minutes. Occasionally, very occasionally, the man is victor, and with a rapid clutch will grasp and annihilate the mosquito as it passes by his face. In the vast majority of cases the man’s watchfulness is in vain. Hours pass, and Nature asserts herself. The mosquito has had amusement enough, and now, meaning business, remains quiet until its victim dozes off. Not until he is sound asleep will it this time move. Then it settles lightly upon him, inserts its delicate proboscis in one of the pores of his skin, pours in a tiny drop of venom to dilute the blood, and then having drunk till its body has swelled to many times its original size, heavily flies away, and fastens itself to the curtain, where it falls an easy victim to the vengeance of the sleeper in the morning. Such is the conflict when one mosquito has found an entrance. When, as is more usual, half a dozen have entered, it is, as may be imagined, still more dire and disastrous; and the sleeper in the morning wakes with perhaps an eye closed, and his face swollen and disfigured by bumps almost beyond knowledge.

The existence of the mosquito can be accounted for only upon the ground that he was sent as a special trial to man’s temper, but in that case Nature evidently miscalculated the amount of self-control that man possesses. A trial can hardly be considered as a trial when the result is certain, and the breakdown of man’s temper under the attacks of the mosquito is universal and complete. It would have been enough had the mosquito been endowed with activity, craft, and voracity. The trial would have been in that case ample, but exceptional men might have passed through it unscathed. It was the addition of the trumpet that settled the matter. No such exasperating sound is to be heard on earth. Good resolutions crumble to nought before it. The most patient and the most stoical of mortals are as much moved by it as their weaker brethren, and the native of the Arctic Circle and he of the Equator alike in their respective languages utter words of despair and profanity. We may hope, however, that science has not yet spoken its last word, and that some future Pasteur or Koch may discover a bacillus capable of creating a contagious and fatal disease among mosquitoes, and that by this means man may be relieved of a burden almost too heavy for him.