Notices to Correspondents. 446
Advertisements. 447

* * * * *

THE MOSQUITO COUNTRY.--ORIGIN OF THE NAME.--EARLY CONNECTION OF THE
MOSQUITO INDIANS WITH THE ENGLISH.

The subject of the Mosquito country has lately acquired a general
interest. I am anxious to insert the following "Notes and Queries" in
your useful periodical, hoping thus to elicit additional information, or
to assist other inquirers.

1. As to the origin of the name. I believe it to be probably derived
from an native name of a tribe of Indians in that part of America. The
Spanish Central Americans speak of _Moscos_. Juarros, A Spanish Central
American author, in his _History of Guatemala_, names the Moscos among
other Indians inhabiting the north-eastern corner of that tract of
country now called _Mosquito_: and in the "Mosquito Correspondence" laid
before Parliament in 1848, the inhabitants of Mosquito are called
_Moscos_ in the Spanish state-papers.

How and when would _Mosco_ have become _Mosquito_? Was it a Spanish
elongation of the name, or an English corruption? In the former case, it
would probably have been another name of the people: in the latter,
probably a name given to the part of the coast near which the Moscos
lived.

The form _Mosquito_, or _Moskito_, or _Muskito_, (as the word is
variously spelt in our old books), is doubtless as old as the earliest