REPORT ON MOSQUITOES. 423 



iar in that a large portion of it is sand, without much of a sod 

 covering even on the marshes. The result is that none but the 

 shallowest ditches will, stand and these soon choke up. The easy 

 and simple drainage by narrow deep ditching is almost totally 

 barred here, and it becomes a cjuestion of filling. Much of that 

 filling can be done from the sand hills along shore, but for other 

 sections the work of a dredge would be necessary. There is no 

 other place along the shore where breeding among the sand hills 

 is more virulent, and where a larger proportion of danger spots 

 can be wiped out by the simplest means. 



As an illustration : From the Ortley Station to the beach 

 there is a road between the sand hills and this road is a little 

 above the level of the valley. On both sides is a swampy area, 

 sometimes broad, sometimes narrow, sometimes extending into 

 another depression to the north or south, but always in my ex- 

 perience with from two to six inches of water in the grassy bot- 

 tom. In this water I found larvse crowded as closely as they 

 could be crowded and within a hundred yards of the Ortley Inn 

 millions of mosquitoes breed throughout the season. It would 

 be the easiest thing in the world to use the sand hills to fill up 

 these breeding holes and Ortley mosquitoes would become ap- 

 preciably reduced in even a single season by a little judicious 

 shovel work. A somewhat similar condition prevails near Berk- 

 eley and this is in sharp contrast with Seaside Park, where the 

 surface has been levelled and graded and local breeding places 

 are almost entirely eliminated. As there is also an effort to keep 

 down weeds and beach shrubbery, the adults have nothing to 

 attract them or to invite them to remain. The result is that with 

 virulent breeding places to the north. Seaside Park yet remains 

 comparatively free from mosquitoes during most of the season. 

 Not that it has no breeding places and never sees wrigglers. On 

 the contrary, after a twO' days' heavy rain I went into a low 

 meadow in which was nearly two inches of surface water, and 

 found young larvae just hatched in any quantity. But the sum- 

 mer sun and wind licked up this pool within forty-eight hours 

 and the entire brood was killed out. And this is the fate of such 

 broods generally, on areas graded so that only large shallow 

 pools can form. 



In his first inspection Mr. Grossbeck mapped out a line of 

 breeding places along the bay side, extending from Barnegat 

 City to the Junction, but the line is by no means continuous, nor 

 of equal width throughout. Directly west of Life Saving Sta- 

 tion No. 17, and southwest of Barnegat City there is quite a 

 broad marsh area in which all the larger pools were supplied with 



