He has figured extensively in the history of the world, yet he wears no laurel wreath of glory for valor in war. All martial victories and renown of his race belong to the gentler (?) sex of the family. She is a kind of Joan of Arc, of a fierce, restless and war-like spirit; but it is consoling to know that she is less savage in the temperate than in the torrid zone; for, we are informed by travelers that in the tropics she often leads her legions in a charge with fixed bayonets directly upon a sleeping man’s face, when they fall upon him in myriads, like pelting hailstones out of a storm-cloud. There are instances of record in which her furious armies have filled the air for many miles, darkening the heavens like dense columns of flying cloud, and attacking man and beast like blood-thirsty demons. A Greek historian relates that such an army once swooped down upon ancient Greece and drove the inhabitants from their homes. Besides being thus famous as a soldier, she enjoys the unique distinction of being a queen of song. Strange to say, in this gift she has a complete monopoly, while the male has been left to regret the sad fate of being forever songless and silent. However, he has been well compensated for this privation. Some tribes of his race have less musical talent than others; but those who have studied his anatomy, habits and genius declare that in tribes in which there are queens of song, he is, without doubt, the king of listeners, since nature has provided him with many hundreds of ears, no doubt to enhance his pleasure from vocal music. These curious ears are small hairs located on his antennæ, or feelers, which, like the strings of harp or violin under the touch of a virtuoso, tremble in unison with the harmony that flows from the living melodion of his queen, until his soul is on fire with melody. Not one of these delicately attuned ears ever seems to be shocked by a falsetto note from the vocal chords of his charmer. To him her song, like that of Wynomoinen, the magical singer, or the sirens of mythical story, is full of the power of enchantment; and the eavesdroppers of science who watch him and listen, tell us that he draws near her whenever she pours out her soul in song. The manner in which she produces her buzzing tones is very wonderful: The lower or contralto note is the result of the rapid vibration of her wings at the rate of three thousand per minute. It is not remarkable, then, that her flight is so swift from her enraged human pursuer. But when she trills and yodles and sings her high soprano, her fantastic music flows from stridulating organs which resemble tiny drums at the openings of minute air tubes. These higher runs thrill Monsignor Mosquito into ecstacies of pure delight. His ravished soul is borne out upon the silver sea of song as he sits on a honeysuckle sipping nectar, listening the while to the wooing voices of his divine inamoratas—the Pattis, Nilssons and Nordicas of his race.