vi INTRODUCTION 



amon<:c summer residents of the country, and especially 

 near the seashore, even before the a<;'t!ncy of mosciuitocs 

 iu the spread of disease became established, and before 

 it l)ecanie a .^tnierally accepted fact. With the very ^ler- 

 fect proof that the mosquitoes of the g-enus Anopheles are 

 instrumental in the carria^^e of malaria, the interest be- 

 came intensified, and the late discovery of our Army 

 Yellow-fever Commission in Cuba, that a mosquito is the 

 conveyor of yellow fever, has added to the general interest 

 in the subject. In fact, the whole mosquito question is a 

 live topic of the day. Knowledge of mosquito lialuts is 

 more general than at any i)revious time, and almost every- 

 one is interested in the subject of mosquito extermina- 

 tion. With the knowledge which we now ]iossess, it 

 seems almost incredible that peojde should all these 

 years have suffered, more or less patientlj^ the torment- 

 ing- bites of Culex and the insidious but more dangerous 

 ])unctures of Anopheles without making the slightest ef- 

 fort to abate the nuisance and the danger, beyond slap- 

 ping:, ill '1 reveng-eful way, at individual biters. In many 

 places infested with mosquitoes nothing could be easier 

 than to put a stop to the whole tormenting plag-ue. In 

 many other cases the problem is a more difficult one, but 

 in even the worst cases, by a judicious effort, which 

 should be a community effort, and by the expenditure of 

 a greater or smaller amount of money, much relief can be 

 gained. In fact, Mr. W. J. Matheson, of New York, was 

 quite right when, in th(^ summer of 1000, just before com- 

 mencing a successful crusade against tlu' mosquitoes on 

 the north shore of Long Island, he wrote me that there 



