Oceania's Worst Mosquitoes

From Our Own Correspondent

Papeete, Oct. 20.

MAIAO, also known by the name Tupuai Manu, is a small, partly volcanic, partly atoll island lying to the west of Moorea, almost due south of Huahine, and bisected by the parallel 153 degrees west longitude.

This small bit of territory, although formerly a fief of the high chiefs of Huahine, does not hold a very important place in ancient legend and history. But in modern times it holds pre-eminence among its sister islands as the worst mosquito-breeding ground in Central Polynesia.

The mosquitoes of Maiao are big and fierce and voracious. No one, except natives of the island, it is said, can live there unless enveloped by smoke from ever-burning smudges or encased in re fuges of wire screens.

Wise and beneficent Nature has pro vided natives of Maiao with extraordin arily thick cuticle; but even they find it convenient, at times, to surround them selves with clouds of smoke to gain re spite from the ceaseless torment.

Deprived of human victims, the mos quitoes attack pigs with relentless fury; and mariners affirm that the cries of the pigs of Maiao can be heard far out to sea.

Happily, these insects are not disease carriers. There is no malaria on the is land and Maiao natives are among the most healthy in French Oceania.