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Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 352, 3 December 1875, Page 3

The 'Lancet' contains the following curious paragraph on the use of the mosquito:— Dr. 8. W. Francis (TT.S.A.) thinks he has discovered the cui bono in the economy of nature, of this pest in warm climates. He believes the mosquito was created for the purpose of driving men from malarial districts ; for in his opinion no region where the chills and fever prevail can be free from this animal. Now if man will,not go after the warning given in humming accents, then the mosquito injects hypodermically a little liquid which answers to two puposes —first to render the blood thin enough to be drawn up through its tube; and secondly, in order to inject that which possesses the principles of quinine. A Melbourne paper reports that recently a gentleman on the metropolitan goldlields, just stout enough to make stopping inconvenient, whilst paying for some refreshment for his friends in a parlour, dropped a coin, which was heard to roll under the sofa. "There goes my half-sovereign—down a crack, I'll be bound!" Of course his friends at once lit matches, and good naturedly went upon unaccustomed knees in Bearch of the truant disc. At last one of them picked the thing up remarking that it was "only sixpence, after aIJ.'V " t knew that," said the. owner calmly, "but if I had told told you at first'you wouldn't have taken the trouble to find it for