OTHER ANIMALS 661 



About a given house the waste places in the immediate vicinity 

 should be carefully searched for tin cans, bottles, and wooden or 

 tin boxes in which water can accumulate, and all such receptacles 

 should be destroyed or carted away. The roof gutters of the build- 

 ing should be carefully examined to make sure that they are not 

 clogged so as to allow water to accumulate. The chicken pans in 

 the poultry yard, the water troughs for domestic animals, the water 

 cup of the grindstone, are all places in which mosquitoes will breed 

 and in them water should not be allowed to stand for more than a 

 day or so at a time. In the South the water accumulating under 

 water tanks should be treated or drained away. The urns in the 

 cemeteries at New Orleans have been found to breed mosquitoes 

 abundantly. The holy water fonts in Roman Catholic churches, 

 especially in the South, have commonly been found to breed mos- 

 quitoes; in some places sponges have been substituted for standing 

 water, and other churches have adopted a closed font, which allows 

 the holy water to issue through a small spigot. In still other 

 churches salt has been put in the water to prevent the breeding of 

 mosquitoes. In slightly marshy ground a favorite breeding place 

 is in the footprints of cattle and horses. In one country village, 

 which contained many small vegetable gardens in a clay soil, dur- 

 ing the rainy season mosquitoes were found breeding abundantly 

 in the water accumulating in the furrows in the gardens. 



Even in the house mosquitoes breed in many places where they 

 may be overlooked. Where the water in flower vases is not fre- 

 quently changed mosquitoes will breed. They will breed in water 

 pitchers in unused guest rooms. They will breed in the tanks in 

 water-closets when the?e are not frequently in use. They will breed 

 in pipes and under stationary washstands where these are not fre- 

 quently in use, and they will issue from the sewer traps in back 

 yards in city houses during dry spells in the summer time when 

 sewers have not recently been flushed by heavy rains. In ware- 

 houses and on docks they breed abundantly in tne fire buckets and 

 water barrels. 



In country houses in the South where ants are troublesome 

 and where it is the custom to insulate the legs of the tables with 

 small cups of water, mosquitoes will breed in these cups unless a 

 small quantity of kerosene is poured in. "Where broken bottles are 

 placed upon a stone wall to form a cheval-de-frise, water accumu- 

 lates in the bottle fragments after rains and mosquitoes will breed 

 there. Old disused wells in gardens are frequent sources of mos- 

 quito supply, even where apparently carefully covered, and hero 

 the nuisance is easily abated by the occasional application of kero- 

 sene. The same thing may be said of cesspools. Cesspools are 

 frequently covered with stone and cement, but the slightest break 

 in the cement, the slightest crack, will allow the entrance of theso 

 minute insects and unlimited breeding often goes on in these pools 

 without a suspicion of the cause of the abundance of mosquitoes in 

 the neighborhood. 



