She lays her eggs in a very queer way. First she finds a puddle or a pool of warmish water. Then she fastens herself to some stick, or sliver, or stem, or floating leaf, by her first two rows of legs. Then she lays about three hundred tiny eggs.
The eggs cling together in the shape of a boat or canoe, and float upon the water. In about three days they hatch. Then the warm water is full of “wigglers.”
By and by these wigglers have wings. The outside skin bursts open. They lift their heads and shoulders out of the water. Then off they fly—a whole swarm of singing, stinging mosquitoes.
We are all glad when the cold weather comes and the mosquito goes.
I suppose you think if you lived in a cold country, you would not be troubled by mosquitoes.
But in Lapland, a very cold country, the mosquitoes come in crowds and clouds. Sometimes they are so thick they hide people in the road like a fog. What do you think of that?
THE LAUGHING GIRL.
The bobolink laughs in the meadow;
The wild waves laugh on the sea;
They sparkle and glance, they dimple and dance,
And are merry as waves can be.
The green leaves laugh on the trees;
The fields laugh out with their flowers;
In the sunbeam’s glance, they glow and they dance.
And laugh to their falling showers.