REPORT ON MOSQUITOES. 119 



importance cannot be g-iven to the use of vegetation as a filler 

 for mosquito breeding pools in the sand hills and low lot areas. 

 Two or three men with scythe, fork and shovel can put out of 

 service a larg« number of breeding pools in a single day, and this 

 method, though a makeshift in some cases, has the advantage 

 that it is good for a season at least and does not cost verv much 

 to carry out. 



The systematic drainage or filling of the marshes along the 

 coast would affect almost the entire State south of the Red 

 Shale, and a considerable area along the valleys of the Raritan, 

 Hackensack and Passaic Rivers. 



No place is given here to measures of a palliative character, 

 such as coating with oil, because that is a most temporary benefit 

 at best. Nevertheless in local breeding places in advance of 

 permanent work, kerosene and fuel oil act as well as they do in 

 fresh water. 



THE HOUSE MOSQUITO. 



In dealing with this insect we meet with what may be known 

 as obligatory breeding- places of a permanent character, due to 

 the exigencies of modern civilization. In accounts of this species 

 stress has been placed upon the fact that it breeds in foul wat:r. 

 including sewer catch-basins, cesspools and gutters, a.; well as 

 in the clean water of rain barrels and cisterns. ySewer catch- 

 basins and drains in park roads must of necessity remain open to 

 the air, and in these catch basins there is always, also of neces- 

 sity, enough water to maintain a mosquito brood. In snch a 

 case nothing remains except to kill off the broods systematically 

 th.roughout the season, using either fuel oil, kerosene, Phinotas 

 nil, soluble crude petroleum or chloronaptholeum. Fuel o'l or 

 kerosene are cheap, simple and effective, but objectionable be- 

 cause of their odor. As the materials act as a surface covering 

 only, the least addition to the water in the catch basin will floai: 

 the oil into the sewer itself and the basin will be ready for another 

 brood of larvje. Nevertheless where this method is applied 

 systematically, many thousands of larvae are destroyed at a very 

 slight expense, and the decrease in the number of adults is fol- 

 lowed by a corresponding decrease in the number of larvre in 

 later broods. Chloronaptholeum is an excellent larvicide and a 

 good disinfectant, but its cost is prohibitive. It has the advan- 

 tage that it poisons the entire water and remains effective for 

 some time against young larvae even when considerably diluted 

 by additions. Phinotas oil and soluble crude oil cost about alike 

 and are equally effective, but the Phinotas oil acts more promptly 



