4o6 AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 



Five-Mile Beach has taken an enormous start during the two 

 or three years last past, and many thousands of dollars have 

 been spent in permanent improvements, principall)^ at Wildwood 

 and closely adjacent to it in Anglesea. I have known Anglesea 

 and its surroundings for fifteen years, and when I began my in- 

 vestigations into the habits of the marsh mosquitoes I naturally 

 selected Anglesea as the proper place, because nowhere have I 

 known them to be more abundant or blood-thirsty. Like others, 

 I believed the broad marshes to be in fault and was fully con- 

 vinced that extermination or even practical control was an iri- 

 descent dream. But when, after several days on the marshes 

 with Captain Ben. Hankins, I found these square miles of marsh 

 land safe, while at the edges of the highlands only were conditions 

 favorable for breeding, I began to think hard and to believe that 

 after all there might be a practical side to the matter. I have 

 tramped over or rowed round almost every island from Shell- 

 Beach Landing to Jenkins' Sound, extending due east to the life- 

 saving- station on the shore, southward to Turtle Gut, Swan 

 Channel and Jarvis Sound, touching there the limits of Mr. 

 Viereck's work from the south. In all that stretch of marsh 

 there are not bred, under ordinary conditions, as many mosqui- 

 toes as develop w-ithin the limits of Anglesea itself. 



Five-Mile Beach was within the scope of Mr. Viereck's ex- 

 plorations, and his first visit was on May 12th, 1903, when there 

 were plenty of adults but no larvae anywhere. A month later 

 conditions had changed, and larvae occurred everywhere along the 

 edge of the highland. This highland is a back-bone well wooded 

 with conifers and deciduous trees, large holly trees forming a 

 characteristic feature toward the southern end. There are ponds 

 and fresh water swamp areas of considerable extent with a very 

 rich flora and insect fauna. Between this highland and the sea 

 there are sand fields and hills, shifting and varying from year to 

 year, in which little or no breeding goes on until Holly Beach is 

 reached. Here the marsh area curves round the edge of the 

 high ridge and there are breeding places eveiywhere — even in 

 streets where these become covered by tides or flooded by rains 

 I have been at Holly Beach frequently during 1903 and 1904, 

 and at no time did I fail to find larvae near the beach or bay. ter- 

 mination of almost every street. Most of the streets are of sand, 

 badly cut up by wagon ruts, and whenever these hold water, there 

 are wrigglers. In the marsh areas cattle have been fed and in 

 almost every hoof print Ian' ae are to be found. For Holly Beach 

 the first necessity is to get the streets in good shape and the de- 

 pressions on the shore side filled. Ditching is impossible because 



