Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1886-09-17
CANADA SOLDIERS.
The Countless Biillons of Euss vvhioi A.
fiiet tho shores of Lake Erie.

met tne >nores OF Lake Erte..
cleveland (o) Cor. n. Y. World
aHere they come, the pesky varmints, .,
The speaker was a fisherman standing
by his fish-house on Put-in-Bay Islandt
He pointed toward what seems to be q
cloud rising above the horizon.
"They're them Canada soldiers" exs
planned the fisherman. "They come alt
OF sudden and stay only few days. bat
what a time they have"
In the afternoon, on the steamer bound
from the Islands to Sandusky, saw that,
indeed, they had come and come in count>
less millions. The steamer plowed through,
n perfect sea of them and churned up the
insects into a mushy mass.
All the lake cities are plagued more or
less with the ephemera or ;, Nav fiiess
known as Canada soldiers, but Sandusky,
surpasses them oil in the volume Of these
peculiar insects. They breed best ii the
bays, and especially in Sandusky bay.
All along its shores in a rood season for
Canada soldiers may be seen miles of
them lying dead in windrows on the sand.
The deep window lodges of the Sandusky
Register office were piled with more than
bushel of them at each window near the
lights, and without the kindly protection
of fly screens the editor of the Register
would be unable to get out his paper, SO
terribly do these pests annoy the night
worker.
The Lake Shore railway runs along the
shore of the bay, and 1t not infrequently.
happens that locomotive is stalled By
the Canada soldiers that flock to the headS
light Of locomotive which has taken d
siding to permit an opposing train to pass.
The insects fall in heaps in front of the
engine. and their oily, slippery carcasses
must be removed before the engine can
start.
Arriving in Cleveland found that the
Canada soldier had preceded me in greater
numbers than ever before known. The
electric light is the insects favorite haunt,
and the restaurants with electric lamps at
their entrances were compelled to extin-
guish the lights for the reason that pedes-
trians walking under the lamps slipped on
the masses of constantly falling May flies.
1t is useless to attempt to sweep them of
until daylight, when bushels of their car
casses have to be carted away.
The Canada soldier reminds one of the
sun worshippers of old in the almost rev.
erent manner that they sit with uplifted
heads and reverently folded wings and
and gaze at light. At this instant q
little colony of them are grouped on my
paper reveling in the glory of the light,
Three of them stand at a distance from
the worshipful light, while one sleek,
small, dark-complexioned fellow, may
hap the high priest, has boldly
mounted the shade and Is bowing
his silly head in salaams Of devotion to
the awful majesty of what? why, COM
mon, every might gas jet. Silly fool, say
you. Well. some mortals worship quite
as blindly objects scarcely more glorious
In the eyes of common sense. 1t Is useless
to attempt to frigbten these pests away.
They have as little of fear as sense. They
are literally drunk on the light. pull
one away and turn him about away from
the light, but the wretched inebriate
wheels about and resumes his glorious
drunk. Now the largest soldier appears
to have the tremens. He is too lazy to
allow even its terrors to convulse him
much. Now he calmly lies down and dies
dies in the glorious light This morning
he was born from the bed of the lake. In
an hour he was bridegroom, ard then,
he, with millions of his fellows, came on
their bridal trip and wild orgie to the
city. Twenty-four hours was his allotted
Lifetime, and nearly half of that was de-
voted to drunken revel beginning with
the dim light of a switch lamp. Having
once tasted the dangerous light the wretch
sank lower and lower until two hours Of
electric-light cocktails scarcely staggered
him, and he died as he lived-drunk. He
leaves large family dependent on Lake
Erie for support. They will be nursed in
this foundling asylum until old enough to
appear in public, when tho awful law Of
hereditySwill assert itself and they will
follow in the footsteps OF their deprav ed
sire and die the death Of a giddy, sense
! less, drunken nuisance.