12 AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 



dition of the water could not by any stretch of imagination be 

 considered as the result of die lar^'al influence. This made it 

 somewhat important to ascertain in a general way something 

 about the food of mosquito larvse. It was noted also that certain 

 of the species never bred except on the salt marsh, and the 

 question arose, what food or other conditions occur on these 

 marshes that are not found further inland. 



To determine some of these points Mr. Horatio N. Parker, 

 Inspector to the Montclair Board of Health, was asked and 

 kindly consented to examine the stomach contents of a series of 

 wrigglers that were sent to him for that purpose. The result is 

 somewhat disappointing, inasmuch as it does not seem to give 

 the real clue to the conditions which make the salt marsh species 

 dependent upon salt marsh conditions. Mr. Parker's findings 

 are of great interest nevertheless and form a part of this report. 



During the summer of 1903 I engaged the services of Mr. E. 

 Brehme, of Newark, as an assistant in the local investigation. 

 He looked after the mosquito cages then on the meadows, and 

 supplied what material was needed for the observations for 

 which they were intended. He kept notes of the local develop- 

 ments on the meadows and collected from Newark back along 

 the first ridg-e of the Orange Mountains, adults as well as larvae, 

 to determine the range of the salt marsh species and the character 

 of the species that actually bred where the meadow species 

 were dominant. Part of the general survey for marsh breeding 

 places near Jersey City was also intrusted to him, as well as the 

 collections along the edge of the marsh area to determine how 

 far inland larvae of sollicifaiis and cantator could be found. 



That some mosquitoes hibernate as adults was, of course, well 

 established ; but when the investigation showed that, where 

 mosquitoes occurred at all. almost every cellar had a winter 

 po^julation that sometimes ran into the hundreds, the question 

 arose whether there was not some way of destroying them while 

 they were dormant and thus lessening the early crop. It is safe 

 to say that 90 per cent, of the hibernating forms in a city, town 

 or village, may be found in house cellars, and the problem was 

 therefore an important one, especially as the Anopheles are 

 among those that hibernate in this way. It is known, of course, 

 that Hydrocyanic acid gas would kill ; l)ut this is so deadly in 

 character that its universal use is prohibited. Sulphur is equally 

 effective when properly used; but its effect upon fabrics and 

 metals limited its application and it was desirable to get some 

 simple, inexpensive material, harmless to mankind yet deadly t(~> 

 mosquitoes. 



