We had not provided ourselves with a tent, and no artifice on our part could protect us from these torments; so, vainly dealing blows right and left, we discussed the oft-mooted point of the mosquito's usefulness to mankind. We lords of creation believe that everything is made for the gratification of man, even thinking at one time, in our ignorance, that the beautiful colors of flowers served no other end, than to gratify the sense of sight. But this fancy, made beautiful by the songs of our poets, has been dealt with as the man of science must ever deal with stubborn facts, and the utility as well as the beauty of these exquisite hues have been discovered. The colors in the petals of the flowers attract certain insects, whose duty it is to fertilize the flowers by dusting the pistils with the pollen of the ripe anthers, some being attracted by one color, some by another. Flowery thoughts were not, however, in keeping with the miserable state of mental and physical restlessness induced by the irritating mosquito, and its usefulness seemed to be a necessary thought to make me patient as I lay like a mummy, enveloped in my blankets. The coons were fighting and squealing around my boat, which lay snugly ensconced in a bayou among the reeds, for, once under my hatch-cover, the presence of man was unheeded by these animals, and they sportively turned my deck into a species of amphitheatre. The vices and virtues of the mosquito may be summed up in a few words, always remembering that it is the FEMALE, and not the MALE, to whom humanity is indebted for lessons of patience. The female mosquito deposits about three hundred eggs, nearly the shape of a grain of wheat, arranging and gluing them perpendicularly side by side, until the whole resembles a solid, canoe-like body, which floats about on the surface of the water. Press this little boat of eggs deep into the water, and its buoyancy causes it to rise immediately to the surface, where it maintains its true position of a well-ballasted craft, right side up. The warmth of the sun, tempered with the moisture of the water, soon hatches the eggs, and the larva, as wigglers or wrigglers, descend to the bottom of the quiet pool, and feed upon the decaying vegetable matter. It moves actively through the stagnant water in its passage to the surface, aerifying it, and at the same time doing faithfully its work as scavenger by consuming vegetable germs and putrefying matter. Professor G. F. Sanborn, and other leading American entomologists, assert that the mosquito saves from twenty-five to forty per cent. in our death-list among those who are exposed to malarial influences. With malaria, the curse of large districts in the United States, sowing its evil seeds broadcast in our land, and daily closing its iron grasp upon its victims, who could wish for the extermination of so useful an insect as the mosquito?