University of Virginia Library

29. Gossip about Bears and Mosquitoes
BY PETER KALM (1748)

BEARS are very numerous higher up in the country, and do much mischief. Mr. Bartram told me, that when a bear catches a cow, he kills her in the following manner. He bites a hole into the hide, and blows with all his power into it, till the animal swells excessively and dies; for the air expands greatly between the flesh and the hide.[120]

An old Swede, called Nils Gustave's son, who was ninety-one years of age, said, that in his youth, the bears had been very frequent hereabouts, but that they had seldom attacked the cattle. Whenever a bear was killed, its flesh was prepared like pork, and it had a very good taste.

The flesh of bears is still prepared like ham, on the river Morris. The environs of Philadelphia, and even the whole province of Pennsylvania in general, contain very few bears, for they have been extirpated by degrees. In Virginia they kill them in several different ways. Their flesh is eaten by both rich and poor, since it is reckoned equal in goodness to pork. In some parts of this province, where no hogs can be kept, on account of the great numbers of bears, the people are used to catch and kill them, and to use them instead of hogs. The American bears, however, are said to be less fierce and dangerous than the European ones.

The gnats, which are very troublesome at night here, are called mosquitoes. They are exactly like

the gnats in Sweden, only somewhat smaller. In daytime or at night they come into the houses and when the people have gone to bed they begin their disagreeable humming, approach nearer to the bed, and at last suck up so much blood that they can hardly fly away. Their bite causes blisters on people with delicate skins.

When the weather has been cool for some days, the mosquitoes disappear. But when it changes again, and especially after a rain, they gather frequently in such quantities about the houses that their numbers are astonishing. The chimneys which have no valves for shutting them out afford the gnats a free entrance into the houses of the English. In sultry evenings the mosquitoes accompany the cattle in great swarms from the woods to the houses, or to town, and when the cattle are driven past the houses the gnats fly in wherever they can.

In the greatest heat of the summer they are so numerous in some places, that the air seems to be quite full of them, especially near swamps and stagnant water, such as the river Morris in New Jersey. The inhabitants therefore make a big fire before the houses to expel these disagreeable guests by the smoke. The old Swedes here say that gnats have formerly been much more numerous; that even at present they swarm in vast quantities on the seashore near the salt water; and that those which troubled us this autumn in Philadelphia were of a more poisonous kind than they commonly used to be. This last quality appeared from the blisters which were formed on the spots where the gnats had made their sting. In Sweden I never felt any other inconvenience from their sting than a little itching while they sucked.

But when they stung me here at night my face was so disfigured by little red spots and blisters that I was almost ashamed to show myself.