Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 May 1875 — Arctic Mosquitoes. [ARTICLE]

Arctic Mosquitoes.

In a work recently published in London—“ The Land of the North Wind; or, Travels among the Laplanders and the Samoyeds”—the author, Edward Roe, gives the following account of the Arctic mosquitoes: “ The one bitter drop in our cup of joy was the monstrous but inseparable curse of Arctic summer life—the mosquito. He abounded, flourished, luxuriated, surpassed himself, out-mosquitoed himself, on the Kuloi River. We were at his mercy; our veils, gauntlets, handkerchiefs, flapper, all were a vanity and vexation. To kill was wanton, for to destroy sufficient was impossible. We had foreseen all this, and had even thought of taking, among other things, a woodpecker from horns with us "to : protect our faces while we slept ; but one : woodpecker would have been a solemn 1 mockery; we should have wanted a i fresh woodpecker every five minutes. I ! suppose these were the historical flies sent to punish the disobedient, obstinate | Egyptians; they came forth in order, and after three grievous plagues—the corruption of the waters, the multitude of frogs, and the swarms of lice—had entirely failed. “We are becoming connoisseurs in mosquitoes; we watch them traverse our veils like 4 figures on slides in a magic lantern. There is the yellow, striped, vampire mosquito, witn a triple fang to his proboscis; there is the brown, humpbacked or camel mosquito, with legs of gossamer, who appears to our vindictive eyes td be from two to three inches in length; finally, there is the scorpion mosquiio, very searching and business like. We dislike him greatly, for he wastes no time. We know now that leather is a hollow delusion, and armor-plated gauntlets are alone of avail.

“Sometimes a mosquito comes and kills himself by squeezing between our finger and thumb, sometimes by flying’ against my flapper. There are moments, but so rare and delicious that I almost tremble to describe them, when we find a mosquito who has anchored himself by the proboscis in our gloves—and we watch the expression of baffled hatred in his countenance with which he watches the approach of the avenging finger. Oh, the peaceful, blissful enjoyment of that moment. Sometimes we watch him, in his anxious, hurried efforts to pierce the glove—he knows that time is all he needs—standing upon his fore legs, with

his hind legs flourishing in the air, while he bores away diligently through the thick leather in his wicked thirst for blood. Sometimes in our frenzy we ensnare a mosquito and get up and trample on his head. We ask ourselves in hours past endurance why the law of nature should be reversed, and man, the lord of creation, become the prey of savage creatures. We have formed a grave "if impious resolution: we will take a mosquito by stratagem, pinion him, and, with the help of a burning glass, offer niqi in sacrifice to the midnight sun.”