lies to eat them. Is it time for supper yet?"

"No, not yet," replied Mrs. Reece. "Do tell the children something about
mosquitoes."

"If I had to choose between Mr. and Mrs. Mosquito, I should take Mr.
Mosquito, for he neither bites nor buzzes, but attends strictly to his
own business. Perhaps he thinks Mrs. Mosquito's voice pretty. Perhaps he
likes to hear about her adventures. But most people do not, for they
think Mrs. Mosquito a busybody, always going where she is not wished,
always breaking up conversations, and always coming back after she has
been plainly told that she is not wanted. Yet her singing is music in
the ears of her husband. Perhaps if we had long, slender antennae, all
covered with hairs, like his, we, too, might like her song. When she
sings these hairs begin to tremble, to vibrate, and a little nerve in
the antennae changes this trembling to sound.

"In every way Mr. Mosquito seems a more pleasant body. He eats very
little, and contents himself with nectar. But she, knowing that
excitement makes the blood flow faster, and being a hearty eater, begins
her song gently at first, then louder and louder, nearer and nearer.
Finally, with her long, slender, sharp stylets, she makes a hole in your
cheek or your arm, pushes in her sucking-beak, and pumps up the blood.
And there she sucks and sucks until her stomach is full or she is
brushed off or killed."

"Where do mosquitoes lay eggs?" asked Jack, who was certain that
everything in the insect world did lay eggs, as indeed everything does.

"In the water; any puddle will do. When the eggs hatch out they are
funny-looking fellows, long, tapering bodies with a big head end. At the
other end are two little prongs. This baby, like some other babies, is
never quiet, but squirms and wriggles so that it is called a wriggler.
Upon its thick head are two little tufts of hair. These it waves every
moment, so that all the food which comes its way will go into its hungry
little mouth. One of the prongs at the other end of the body is an
air-tube, so that the baby mosquito has to stand on its head to breathe.
It hangs head downward, and holds its air-tube above the surface of the
water.

"When people pour kerosene upon the water the wriggler cannot get any
air to breathe, and therefore dies. Within a few days the wriggler
changes its skin three times; after the third change it looks very
different, and is called a pupa. Now, instead of having an air-tube at
the