Note 94 — Chapter II

Insects and fish—which prey upon and feed each other—are the only forms of animal life that are numerous in the native woods, and their range is, of course, limited by the extent of the waters. The great abundance of the trout, and of other more or less allied genera in the lakes of Lapland, seems to be due to the supply of food provided for them by the swarms of insects which in the larva state inhabit the waters, or, in other stages of their life, are accidentally swept into them. All travellers in the north of Europe speak of the gnat and the mosquito as very serious drawbacks upon the enjoyments of the summer tourist, who visits the head of the Gulf of Bothnia to see the midnight sun, and the brothers Læstadius regard them as one of the great plagues of sub-Arctic life. "The persecutions of these insects," says Lars Levi Læstadius [Culex pipiens, Culex reptans, and Culex pulicaris], "leave not a moment's peace, by day or night, to any living creature. Not only man, but cattle, and even birds and wild beasts, suffer intolerably from their bite." He adds in a note, "I will not affirm that they have ever devoured a living man, but many young cattle, such as lambs and calves, have been worried out of their lives by them. All the people of Lapland declare that young birds are killed by them, and this is not improbable, for birds are scarce after seasons when the midge, the gnat, and the mosquito are numerous."—Om Uppodlingar i Lappmarken, p. 50.

Petrus Læstadius makes similar statements in his Journal för första året, p. 285.