There is not in all organic nature, to my mind, any instance of wasted
energy comparable in magnitude with the mosquito's thirst for blood, and
the instincts and elaborate blood-pumping apparatus with which it is
related. The amount of pollen given off by some wind-fertilized
trees--so great in some places that it covers hundreds of square miles
of earth and water with a film of yellow dust---strikes us as an amazing
waste of material on the part of nature; but in these cases we readily
see that this excessive prodigality is necessary to continue the
species, and that a sufficient number of flowers would not be
impregnated unless the entire trees were bathed for days in the
fertilizing cloud, in which only one out of many millions of floating
particles can ever hit the mark. The mosquito is able to procreate
without ever satisfying its ravenous appetite for blood. To swell its
grey thread-like abdomen to a coral bead is a delight to the insect, but
not necessary to its existence, like food and water to ours; it is the
great prize in the lottery of life, which few can ever succeed in
drawing. In a hot summer, when one has ridden perhaps for half a day
over a low-lying or wet district, through an atmosphere literally
obscured with a fog of mosquitoes, this fact strikes the mind very
forcibly, for in such places it frequently is the case that mammals do
not exist, or are exceedingly rare. In Europe it is different.
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