By Anrnun DE C
As spring advances and the air gives up the chill of winter life in the ponds and ditches begins to stir after its long sleep. There is a great awakening and from all sorts Of hiding places various kinds of Organisms make their appearance join in the great dance of life which goes on unendingly from early pring till late autumn, when wine ter cloves dows over the country Frogs and toads which have been dormant in the mud at the bottom fof ponds bestir themselves and with Slow half-hearted kicks propel themselves through-the weeds and slime, Fish, too, become more active and go swimming about in search of feod. They disturb the _water-beetles and the caddis-worms, the dragonfly nymphs and the may fly Jrubs, which in turn move slowly bout as the awakening blood begins to circulate through their systems, and 80, bit by bit, every one of the countless sleepers' has been stirred into activity.
Soon, as the water grows warmec with the increasing strength of the sun's rays, the more mature of these forms find their way to the surface of the pond or ditch, or whatever it happens to be, and dargoing their last_metamorphos! appear as free-flying, perfect insects, ud the next. thing we know is full of their forms, and the "dance of life" has begun in earnest.
Amongst these early swarms of insects are always a number of mosquitoes, the forerunners of the words, which, later in the year, make life a'burden for many of us.
Well it would be if these early visitors could be stamped out of existence by some means, for they are the prospective progenitors of the season's broods, and in an incredibshort space of time they have found their mates and the business of reproduction has commenced.
Flying to the nearest pond afier she has mated, the female mosquito, bulging with eggs, alights upon the surface of "the water, and begins tu deposit her brood, placing each egg carefully beside the last and renning a sort of boat, which floats safely upon the surface. Within a few days, these eggs hatch out and there appear on the underside of the little boat a number of tiny creatures, slender in shape, with proment heads at one end and several minute hairs at the other. These are commonly called."wrigglers." They hang with their heads down, and their tails so arranged that certain of the little hairs, which are hollow, protrude just above the surface of the water, and it is by this means that the little creatures breathe. If something frightens them they go scuttling down to the bottom of the pond, making the fanny Bittle side-to-side motions which earn them their name. Soon, however, They" are forced 10 rise to the euro fuse again, for they cannot breathe down below. They feed upon all sorts of organic matter which they find in the water, and their growth is very rapid. Soon they undergo change. They turn from @ long caterpillar-shaped creature into Something more resembling a tadpole, This is the pupal stage. There a thick lumpy head and thorax all in one piece, and a separate [slender tail, or abdomen, as it should more rightly be called. An inter esting thing is, that the breathing tubes oF hairs are no longer at the tend of the tail, but are on the ups per part of the thorax close to the head, #0 that the head end comes uppermost when the creature is, breathing at the surface of the water. During this stage, though the creature is very active, it cane not, feed, since there is no mouth, While underneath the skin a new nietamorphosis is taking place. Leg: wings, antonns, proboscisses_an ther organs are forming.—There comes a day when the little tadpolelike wriggler keeps persistently near the surface of the water. Suddenly the skin of the back cracks open and out comes the imago, the perfect insect.
Resting lightly upon the water for a little while the mosquito waits for its wings harden in the if a female to begin her thirsty career, if a male to seek mate, or flit away his short life useless play If we examine these ins we shall find that there is siderable difference between male and the female. The mal be The female has much long, feathery antenna and no pro-
smaller antenna, which are either plain or much less feathered, Dut she is armed with a proboscis, which consists of an outer sh protecting a regular surgeon's set of cutting, piercing and boring me struments, together with a tube. She is thus provided to pierce the toughest hide and extract, by ste~ tion, the warm blood of some luck-ess' animal.
Just why the female mosquito has developed her blood-sucking propen~ sities is not apparent, for she can get on perfectly well' without this particular kind of food, fulfilling her functions of reproduction on rething stronger than the juice of succulent water plants. However that may be, the fact remains that she does attack warm-blooded ani-ils, especially man, when she gets the chance, and, in so doing, infects him with certain ites which she has been harbouring in her own system. Amongst these are the germs of such diseases as malaria and yellow fever, which spend part of their life-cycle in man and part in some particular kind of mosquito, Thus, besides the charge of make ing life very uncomfortable for us there is snather and much more
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.