The dreaded Midge!

[Departed Member]

Have any of you folks here ever suffered the attentions of Scotland's most voracious 'wee beastie', the Midge, whilst being Kilted, skirted, or even (heaven forbid!) tr*usered? Or anything similar in the USA, or wherever? There's been a lot of talk on the TV, etc., this past week about attacks on tourists in the Scottish Highlands. Apparently, they (the midges, not the tourists! ) are adept at finding bare (human) skin & feasting thereupon. I've never been thus attacked whilst wearing a Kilt (the movement puts them off?), but if they got up shorts legs...........

[Since1982]

In the Florida Keys we have something called "Sand Gnats" tiny but with huge mouths and lovvvvvve your blood. Probably Midges by another name.

[skirttron]

I once got bitten to pieces by mosquitos on vacation wearing a sarong. I made the mistake of sitting out on the porch at night with a Margarita.

[Topsy]

The mistake was obviously the Margharita

[Topsy]

Merlin

I found this on the Beeb's site about a midge detector.

[Ash]

Hi all,
Why didn't your friend Margharita get bitten?
Ash

[Since1982]

Sand Gnats, the bane of early morning and dusk in the keys, looks exactly like, under a microscope, a more muscular miniature Mosquito. The only real difference between them is the Sand Gnats saliva(the saliva is where the sting and following welt comes from) is far more powerful than a Mosquitoes saliva is. Also, you only have Sand Gnat problems in the morning and evening and you can have Mosquito problems 24/7. I don't know if Midges and Sand Gnats are related, but they might be. The bite sounds about the same.

I was once on a trip to a friends house on South Bimini in the Bahamas and stayed there a week. As it was in the summertime and he had no air conditioning in his house, (40 years ago) I slept on a cot out on the back porch. My friends patron, (The actual owner of the house) who was too old and infirm to ever visit there again made his money in hardwear. One of his inventions was a screen that was 140 wires to the inch. Normal screen wire is 40 wires to the inch. Sand Gnats fly right through regular screen wire but they couldn't fly through the screen wire on my friends porch, BUT, they could smell my blood just fine through it and concentrated in a 3 foot across circular ball just 6 inches from my sleeping face. On my first morning there I awoke to a soft murmuring of millions of Sand Gnats quietly buzzing 6 inches away. I looked at them in fascination for about 10 minutes until I had a brainstorm, called out for my friend to bring me the Raid Flying Insect Spray, and shot them all at once from the inside of the screen. They all fell in a heap outside and for the rest of the week I only got about 6 bites as I had killed nearly the entire Sand Gnat population of the Island.

You could see just fine through that wire, it was difficult getting air through it though. Probably why it never became famous and popular.

I thought you all might like a look into one of the interesting experiences of my younger life.

[Big and Bashful]

I think that the midges home in on the CO2 in your breath.
I suppose the skirted nethers are safe unless you emit a 'trouser cough'. Maybe the mix of vapours in a rectal blurt could tempt midges in for a feast. Still as only the females bite at least the below the waist shenanigans are being chewed by the right gender!

[Departed Member]

Aha! I'd almost forgotten the midges! As I remember, the usual 'bite zones' were usually where they got tangled in yer body hair!!!!!! Shaved legs were to prove a benefit/bonus, other than for the real reason (reducing scars from takin' a tumble off yer bike!)!