Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 June 1895 — The Mosquito's Feeding-Time. [ARTICLE]

The Mosquito's Feeding-Time.

His appetite is gigantic, for he is all stomach. Watch him while he is feeding—on somebody else—and you marvel at his extraordinary elasticity and power of accommodation. Having waited until his victim’s closed eyes betoken slumber, he ceases the song he! has been singing thoughtfully to himself, and drops, softly as a floss of this-tle-down, upon the spot of his choice. He folds his gauzy wings, unfurls his proboscis, strokes the creases out of It, gives It a flourish or two, and plunges It into the epidermis. At first he stands on all eight legs, absorbed in his repast; but presently, the first sharp edge of hunger dulled, he begins to show signs of enjoyment Raising his liindermost pair of legs he works them stiflly up and down, as though to aid by this pump-handle action the process of suction. His body, no thicker than a silken thread when he, alighted, begins to take decided shape, and tho black and gray bands adorn him show up distinctly.

Steadily he continues to increase In bulk uniformly from end to end; a pinky hue suffuses his whole being, and he seems to blush all over with delight By-and-by the hindennost legs cease pumping, and resume their proper office; the distended body sinks down as though the slender limbs could no longer support its weight The mosquito has finished; in other words, he can hold no more. He rolls up his proboscis, and the imaginative spectator hears his microscopic sigh of repletion. He feels his now portly form all over with his legs, just to make sure that he can’t hold any more, spreads his wings, and sails heavily away to digest his meal.