VALUE OF MOSQUITO CONTROL 5 



rainy weather, and grown to an unusual size. Whoever has made the 

 acquaintance of these small enemies of the night's rest will know that the 

 buzzing of a few of them is sufficient to banish sleep for hours. I had 

 covered myself with a cloak, and a thick sail, and the night being ex- 

 tremely warm I suffered as in a perfect sweat-bath, but the musquetoes 

 found their way through. The complete stillness of the night gave them 

 liberty to swarm about at will, for in windy weather they do not appear, 

 and when high cold winds set in from the northwest such regions as these 

 are for a time swept of musquetoes, either benumbed by the cold or car- 

 ried out to sea. 



"After daybrake we were taken to the house of the man who owns the 

 ferry, the only ferry thereabouts, a few hundred yards from the landing 

 place, but not beyond the territory of the musquetoes. Before the door 

 stood a great vat in which a wet-wood fire was kindled ; the musquetoes 

 were kept off by the smoke in which the people of the place were making 

 themselves comfortable. The owner of the ferry was a doctor, no less, 

 and admitted with the greatest candor that he had chosen such an in- 

 fernal situation only with the praiseworthy design of making, that is 

 gaining money." 



J. B. Brissot de Werville in 1788 said: "The road from New York to 

 Newark is in part over a marsh ; I found it really astonishing ; it recalls 

 to mind the indefatigable industry of the ancient Dutch settlers men- 

 tioned by Mr. de Crevecoeur. Built wholly of wood, with much labour 

 and perseverance in the midst of water, on a soil that trembles under 

 your feet, it proves to what point may be carried the patience of man, 

 who is determined to conquer nature. 



"But though much of these mashes are drained, there remains a large 

 extent of them covered with stagnant waters, which infect the air, and 

 give birth to these musquitoes with which you are cruelly tormented, 

 and to an epidemical fever which makes great ravages in summer; a 

 fever known likewise in Virginia and in the southern states, in parts ad- 

 jacent to the sea." 



Dr. William Currie of Philadelphia in 1792 said: "The flat and 

 marshy parts of this State (New Jersey) which are very numerous are 

 infested with myriads of musquetoes which give intolerable annoyance 

 to man and beast. Their bites often occasion an Erysipelas, both pain- 

 ful and dangerous. These insects, however, are never observed when the 

 mercury is below the 60°. I do not know the degree of cold which renders 

 bugs inactive, but have been kept awake by them at Salem as late as the 

 tenth of November." 



Thus it appears that in early days from 1637 to 1850 the pest mos- 



