HISTORY OF MOSQUITO CONTROL IN NEW JERSEY 265 



mosquitoes in your jurisdiction? I will supply as many vials as are 

 needed, and will be glad to give whatever information is desired as to 

 methods of collecting and preserving. 



"8. Any further information bearing on the above matters is desired 

 and will be appreciated. 



"It may be added that the information obtained will not be published 

 in such a way as to prejudice any particular locality; but is necessary 

 to establish facts and relations. It is also to be used as a basis for recom- 

 mending measures to mitigate or locally abolish the mosquito pest." 



In the same year the South Orange Improvement Association, under 

 the leadership of Spencer Miller, initiated a local campaign against the 

 pests and secured Dr. L. O. Howard, chief of the Bureau of Entomol- 

 ogy, to lecture in South Orange on that subject on May 16, 1901. Fol- 

 lowing this lecture the South Orange Improvement Association carried 

 on a campaign throughout that season and each season following until 

 the work was taken up on a broader basis. 



In the meantime interest in mosquito control had made its appear- 

 ance among the residents of the north shore of Long Island. This in- 

 terest seems largely to have been stimulated by the work of Henry Clay 

 Weeks and to have involved William J. Matheson, Paul D. Gravath, 

 C. B. Davenport, and others. 



For the sake of clearness it seems to be advisable to give a separate 

 account of the activities of each of several groups, all of which were 

 working in one way or another along lines of mosquito suppression. 



Sufficient progress was made by Dr. Smith with the appropriation 

 of 1900 to enable him to induce the Legislature of the state in the year 

 1902 to pass an act authorizing the sum of $10,000 for a study of the 

 mosquito problem. This act and subsequent ones mentioned here are 

 quoted in Chapter 9 of this book. 



Unfortunately the appropriation committee failed to provide the 

 money, and the work was continued during the following summer only 

 through the interest of Governor Murphy, who set aside from his emer- 

 gency fund the sum of $1,000 for this purpose. The appropriation com- 

 mittee of the 1903 Legislature provided the funds contemplated in 

 1902. 



With the necessary funds in hand Dr. Smith planned and carried out 

 a very careful study of the structural characters, the life history and 

 habits, and methods of controlling the principal species. He proved for 

 the first time what was stated in Chapter 1, that salt-marsh-bred species 

 migrated for long distances over the upland, reaching points more than 

 thirty miles away in large numbers and infesting seriously more than 



