And if then fifty or a hundred individuals were to
succeed every year in capturing something and making one hearty meal,
these few fortunate diners would bear about the same proportion to all
the raptors on the globe as the mosquitoes that succeed in sucking blood
to their unsuccessful fellows. In the case of the hawks, the effect of
the few meals on the entire rapacious family or order would certainly be
_nil;_ and it is impossible to believe for a moment that the
comparatively infinitesimal amount of blood sucked by mosquitoes can.
serve to invigorate the species. The wonder is that the machinery, which
accomplishes nothing, should continue in such perfect working order.
When we consider the insect's delicate organ, so admirably fitted for
the purpose to which it is applied, it becomes difficult to believe that
it could have been so perfected except in a condition of things utterly
unlike the present. There must have been a time when mosquitoes found
their proper nourishment, and when warm mammalian blood was as necessary
to their existence as honey is to that of the bee, or insect food to the
dragon-fly.
This applies to many blood-sucking insects besides mosquitoes, and with
special force to the tick tribes (Ixodes), which swarm throughout
Central and South America; for in these degraded spiders the whole body
has been manifestly modified to fit it for a parasitical life; while the
habits of the insect during its blind, helpless, waiting existence on
trees, and its sudden great development when it succeeds in attaching
itself to an animal body, also point irresistibly to the same
conclusion.
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