When the larva reaches the surface of the water, it inhales, through a delicate tube at the lower end of its body, all the air necessary for its respiration. Having lived three or four weeks in the water, during which time it has entered the pupa state, the original skin is cast oft; and the insect is transformed into a different and more perfect state. A few days later the epidermis of the pupa falls oft; and floats upon the water, and upon this light raft the insect dries its body in the warm rays of the sun; its damp and heavy form grows lighter and more ethereal; it slowly spreads its delicate wings to dry, and soon rises into the clear ether a perfected being.
The male mosquitoes retire to the woods, and lead an indolent, harmless life among the flowers and damp leaves. They are not provided with a lancet, and consequently do not feed upon blood, but suck up moisture through the little tubes nature has given them for that purpose. They are a quiet, well-behaved race, and do not even sing; both the music and the sting being reserved for the other sex. They rarely enter the abodes of man, and may be easily identified by their heavy, feathery antenn and long maxillary palpi.
Unfortunately for mankind, the female mosquito possesses a most elaborate instrument of torture. She first warns us of her presence by the buzzing sound we know so well, and then settling upon her victim, thrusts into the quivering flesh five sharp organs, one of which is a delicate lancet. These organs, taken in one mass, are called the beak, or bill of the insect. A writer says: "The bill has a blunt fork at the end, and is apparently grooved. Working through the groove, and projecting from the centre of the angle of the fork, is a lance of perfect form, sharpened with a fine bevel. Beside it the most perfect lance looks like a handsaw. On either side of this lance two saws are arranged, with the points fine and sharp, and the teeth well-defined and keen. The backs of these saws play against the lance. When the mosquito alights, with its peculiar hum, it thrusts in its keen lance, and then enlarges the aperture with the two saws, which play beside the lance, until the forked bill, with its capillary arrangement for pumping blood, can be inserted. The sawing process is what grates upon the nerves of the victim, and causes him to strike wildly at the sawyer. The irritation of a mosquito's bite is undoubtedly owing to these saws. It is to be hoped that the mosquito keeps her surgical instruments clean, otherwise it might be a means of propagating blood diseases."
While the mosquito is a sort of parasite, Professor Sanborn, the "Consulting Naturalist" of Andover, Massachusetts, informs me that he has discovered as many as four or five parasitical worms preying upon the inside tissues of the minute beak of the insect.
When the young female mosquito emerges from the water, she lays her eggs in the way described, and her offspring following in time her example, several broods are raised in a single season. Many of the old ones die off; but a sufficient number hybernate under the bark of trees and in dwelling-houses, to perpetuate the species in the early spring months of the following year.
Another insect scavenger, found along the low shores of the Gulf, is the blow-fly, and one very useful to man. Of one species of this insect the distinguished naturalist Reaumur has asserted that the progeny of a single female will consume the carcass of a horse in the same time that it will require a lion to devour it. This singular statement may be explained in the following way. The female fly discovers the body of a dead horse, and deposits (as one species does) her six hundred eggs upon it. In twenty-four hours these eggs will hatch, producing about three hundred female larva, which feed upon the flesh of the horse for about three days, when they attain the perfected state of flies. The three hundred female flies will in their turn deposit some hundred and eighty thousand eggs, which become in four days an army of devourers, and thus in about twelve days, under favorable circumstances, the flesh is consumed by the progeny of one pair of flies in the same time that a lion would devour the carcass.
Our sleepless night coming at last to an end, we rowed, at dawn, along the prairie shores of the northern coast towards the open Gulf of Mexico. Back of the prairies the forests rose like a green wall in the distance. A heavy fog settled down upon the water and drove us into camp upon the prairie, where we endured again the torture caused by the myriads of bloodthirsty mosquitoes, and were only too glad to make an early start the next morning. A steady pull at the oars brought us to the end of a long cape in the marshes. About a mile and a half east of the land's end we saw a marshy island, of three or four acres in extent, out of the grass of which arose a small wooden light-house, resting securely upon its bed of piles. There was a broad gallery around the low tower, and seeing the light-keeper seated under the shadow of its roof, we pulled out to sea, hoping to obtain information from him as to the "lay of the land." It was the Light of St. Joseph, and here, isolated from their fellow-men, lived Mr. H. G. Plunkett and his assistant light-keeper.
They were completely surrounded by water, which at high tide submerged their entire island. Mr. Butler, the assistant light-keeper, was absent at the village of Bay St. Louis, on the northern shore. The principal keeper begged us to wait until he could cook us a dinner, but the rising south-east wind threatened a rough sea, and warned us to hasten back to the land. The keeper, standing on his gallery, pointed out the village of Shieldsboro, nine miles distant, on the north coast, and we plainly saw its white cottages glimmering among the green trees.
Mr. Plunkett advised us not to return to the coast which we had just left, as it would necessitate following a long contour of the shore to reach Shieldsboro, but assured us that we could row nine miles in a straight course across the open Gulf to the north coast without difficulty. He argued that the rising wind was a fair one for our boats; and that a two hours' strong pull at the oars would enable us to reach a good camping-place on high ground, while if we took the safer but more roundabout route, it would be impossible to arrive at the desired port that night, and we would again be compelled to camp upon the low prairies. We knew what that meant; and to escape another sleepless night in the mosquito lowland, we were ready to take almost any risk.
Having critically examined our oar-locks, and carefully ballasted our boats, we pulled into the rough water. The light-keeper shouted encouragingly to us from his high porch, "You'll get across all right, and will have a good camp to-night!" For a long time we worked carefully at our oars, our little shells now rising on the high crest of a combing sea, now sinking deep into the trough, when one of us could catch only a glimpse of his companion's head. As the wind increased, and the sea became white with caps, it required the greatest care to keep our boats from filling. The light-keeper continued to watch us through his telescope, fearing his counsel had been ill-advised. At times we glanced over our shoulders at the white sandbanks and forest-crowned coasts of Shieldsboro and Bay St. Louis, which were gradually rising to our view, higher and higher above the tide. The piers of the summer watering-places, some of them one thousand feet in length, ran out into shoal water. Against these the waves beat in fury, enveloping the abutments in clouds of white spray. When within a mile of Shieldsboro the ominous thundering of the surf, pounding upon the shelving beach of hard sand, warned us of the difficulty to be experienced in passing through the breakers to the land.