MOSQUITOES.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4597, 14 December 1875, Page 1 (Supplement)

MOSQUITOES.

The writer of "Specialties" in the Queenslander says :—The story we are going to tell you has reference to the sportive mosquito, a cheerful insect, which generally takes a great rise out of the human species, but which we have managed, so we fancy, to turn the tables on; and by the time you have finished our narrative, we feel convinced that all your sympathies will be transferred to the unhappy mosquito. We may premise that we are a tough old bachelor, with well developed beard and moustache, and we begin the mosquito bait (far better aud safer fun than a bull bait) at ten p.m. nightly. We procure a sofa squab aud pillow, and put them on the floor ; we spread a blanket thereon, with the edge projecting two feet on each side and at the foot, aud we put another blauket over this one, and get between them ; we have a soft, thick cotton bath towel ready at hand ; we put out the candle, and straightway the fun begins. The mosquitoes are carefully and artfully attracted by our exposed face and hands, and we wait till they are all well on the scent, to the number of a couple of hundred or so of them, aud then, presto .' we pop on the towel over our face aud hand, leaving only our nostrils exposed, aud we draw our hands under the blanket aud just listen. Our moustache aud beard are, of course, bomb proof ; our rushing breath forbids any attack on the nostrils, and so our friend with the probosis " wires in " at the towel, as presenting the best opening for attack. Mosquito No. 1 may be heard to settle down with a self-satisfied and hopeful buzz ; ho takes soundings with his trunk into the depths of the towel, and for a space of about fifteen seconds or so all is hushed in expectancy. Presently the deluded insect draws up his feeler, with "no effects" plainly and sadly endorsed on it. If, however, you have ever noticed the head of the mosquito, you will not fail to have > observed that the bump of "hope" is largely developed, so he soon settles down a"ain in a fresh place, but for a shorter length of time perhaps, at the second offort. We in the meantime, are divided between lau-diter and a comfortable tendency to drop off°to sleep. Again does our thirsty friend rise with a disappointed buzz, and "no effects plainly written on his draft ; the sofa squab is, of course, shaken with convulsive throes all tho time. At last, after repeated efforts, each one growing shorter and more angry than the last, our friend may be-heard sailing upwards, buzzing and supperless, to the ceiling—regularly taken in and dons for. And as with

mosquito No. 1, so with all the others ; it is one sad chorus of disappointment, and despair at such a palpable "plant and sell," and by" the time we wake from our first sound beauty sleep, generally about 2 a.m., not a buzz is to be heard. But of course we can't afford to spoil sport in this way, so we again uncover our face and hands, and down come our confiding friends from the ceiling again, and so soon as they are all well excited, we again draw towel aud blanket over the scene and go to sleep, and the fun begins da capo, and it is repeated as often as we happen to wake in the night. When the day finally dawns, a row of very empty mosquitoes may be observed on the ceiling ; and in addition to their famished and woe-begone appearance, they do not appear somehow to have slept half so well as we ourselves have done ; and they have evidently, too, taken a great deal more unrequited exercise iu the course of the night, with legs, wings, and suckers than is good for them on an empty stomach. We have practised this game for a dozen years or so, and if there were any s " aa ' e l ut 111 l iu our composition, we know we should never be able to look a mosquito in the face. But we are never cruel to any other creature, so we hope to he forgiven ou our foible. It amuses us ; and mosquitoes "ain't got no friends."