The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-10-20

really bathos applied to this particular spot. Once on a time we also longed for Christian society, and insisted upon taking the short cut. The mosquitoes were so thick that one could not see the paddler in the bows; clapping ones palms together one felt the crush of in- sects between them, and a black paste but we did not spend more than an hour, happily, in getting through. A few days afterward Cap tain Reid, of her Majesty's ship Rifle man, passed, going on a visit to the Rajah. For three years he had been surveying in the China seas, and his crew were inured to mosquitoes, if men can be. But with difficulty they reached Kuching, and four were taken straight to hospital. Doubtless the oars in that narrow passage, shaking the nipa leaves, which are half sub reach upon them
 How do the small fiends live? The question obtrudes itself in spots like this. Evidently they get no taste of blood. Men do not pass once in week, animals there are none in grove of nipa palms, always under water. So far as we can see, their lan- cets and sucking tubes serve no pur- pose, for if they eat one another all the ingenious apparatus is unnecessary. It is the same case with f1eas in south- ern Europe and elsewhere. The corn fields are alive with them, and though at harvest time one in millions may find a victim, generations have lived and died in the months preceding. Darwin's experiments with inSect-eat- ing plants may possibly throw light upon the matter. Keeping some under conditions which forbade them to catch insects, and others of the same species unrestrained, he found that although both grew and lowered with equal viz or apparently, those deprived of ami nal food did not readily set their seed, nor ripen it when set, while the young plants were weakly. A supply of in sects appears to be necessary for the preservation of the species. So, per haps, the minute proportion of mosqui- toes which find dead fish or something of the sort keep the pernicious breed t1ourishing.
 But there are legends in the South Seas of a tree which propagates mo- squitoes. One may fancy the stories of horror and death arising naturally from that conception. Those who be- lieve that popular tales always have some base of truth might well be puz- zled in this instaNre. Chats do not breed in trees. Eye-witnesses con- firrned the statement in books, but they failed to convince. At length Lieuten- ant Meade, R. N., actually beheld the phenomenon upon the island of Kanda- ua, and his report satisfied all parties, Each separate leaf was completely covered with hundreds of little gray wings and bodies, all pointing in the same direction, pulsating with life, so closely packed that not an atom of the green surface could be seen. They did not seem to be feeding, but they were not easily disturbed"
 Not till after the closest scrutiny did Lieutenant Meade perceive that the in- sects were not mosquitoes. Thus folk lore was justified once again. for it does not claim scientific accuracy. But the public wants to know, above all, whether there Is any means of routing or evading this enemy of the human race, which is not itself torment. The question must needs have occu- pied the deepest minds-Darwin's and Humboldt's, for example; but we do not recall that they solved it. The Chinese have done so, however. When Europe ceases to laugh and sheer at these people it will learn many prec- ious secret. The preparation called mum jung-ean can be bought anywhere in China, and no mosquito will ap- proach it's smoke not at all unpleasant
 To Robert Fortunes careful and diffi- cult analysis we are indebted for the ingredients of this composition-juniper sawdust, artemisia leaves powdered
 tobacco, arsenic, and mineral called wang Most unhappily Fortune omits to translate this word. The pro- portions we forget, but they will be found in his old book, Residence Among the Chinese" and nuwang can be identified without much trouble, The cost--in China is threepence for hundred sticks, and two sticks keep a room of moderate size absolutely clear of mosquitoes all night.-Pall Mall Ga Zette.