Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 November 1874 — The Mosquito. [ARTICLE]

The Mosquito.

In its perfect, or winged, state it is about as annoying a creature as can be, but then it must be remembered that the traveler is but a casual intruder in the natural domain of the mosquito, and must expect the consequences of his intrusion. Devouring travelers is not the normal occupation of the mosquito, for hundreds of successive generations may live and die, and not one of them ever see a human being. Their real object is a beneficent one. In their larval state they live in the water, and feed upon the tiny particles of decaying matter that are too small to be appreciated by the larger aquatic beings, and, by devouring them, purify the water and convert death into life. Even in our ponds at home we are much indebted to the gnat larvae for saving us from miaSma; while the vast armies of mosquito larvae that swarm along the edges of tropical lakes and feed upon the decaying substances that fall 'from the herbage of the banks purify at the same time the water and the atmosphere, and enable human beings to breathe with safety the air in which without their aid no animal higher than a reptile could have existed.—“ Insectß Abroad ,” by the Rev. J. G. Wood. —The Salt Lake Feus computes the number of polygamists in the Territory at 1,000 men, 3,000 women and 9,000 children, and the cost and loss by the punishment of all at $2,000, and that the courts would have around them 3,000 crying women and 9,000 crying children. —The Boston Fire Department has cost for the past five months $340,664-