“Of course you don’t,” said Mrs. Mosquito. “Is there anything you _do_ know? Well, I suppose I must tell you. I don’t care for science, because it interferes too much. Once upon a time men were our friends. We not only had nice juicy meals from them, but we had their rain barrels as nurseries for our children. Of course, what they said about us, when we came too near them, was not always complimentary, but a mosquito, attending strictly to business, doesn’t mind a little thing like that. But now come these fellows who know so much, or think they know so much. We carry malaria, they say, whatever that is, and the rain barrel must go, because it helps to breed mosquitoes. Not only that, these interfering fellows seem to spend their time thinking up ways to finish us. Well, I sting them every chance I get.” “But alas! the rain barrel is going. I was hatched in one of the few to be found in these sad days. I was a lively baby, I can tell you. Young mosquitoes are called wrigglers and, true to my name, I wriggled for all I was worth. Now, when you know that my mother had laid something like three hundred eggs, and all had hatched into wrigglers as lively as myself, you can imagine the time there was in that old rain barrel.” “But why,” asked Ruth “are you called wrigglers when you are young, and mosquitoes when you are grown up?” “Why are you called baby when you are born, girl when you are half grown, and woman when you are quite grown?” replied Mrs. Mosquito, and Ruth said no more. “Now,” went on Mrs. Mosquito, “I should like to tell you more about wrigglers, how they stand on their heads and breathe with their tails, and how they shed their skins when they become full-grown mosquitoes, but I haven’t time. The others are coming.” “Others?” repeated Ruth. “What others?” “The members of the Diptera order of course,” answered Mrs. Mosquito, with an important air. “You see, I found you sleeping under the tree and I knew you wanted to learn about the things that are worth while, and as we are very worth while, I sent a friend to tell all the members of our order to meet in this spot.” “Exactly what that young mosquito told me,” said Mrs. Hessian Fly, buzzing up excitedly. She was a dusky-winged creature, scarcely more than an eighth of an inch long. “What is the Diptera anyhow?” “Why, you are one,” explained Mrs. Mosquito, with a superior smile. “It is quite a tax to know things for everybody,” she said to Ruth, “but you see I am around men so much I learn a great deal. I once attended a meeting of the men who think themselves wise. I wasn’t invited, you understand, but I went, and I attracted much attention too. Well, this is what I heard: The audience will please listen, it concerns you all: