172 MOSQUITOES 



kerosene in a watering trough at Ithaca, N. Y. , and found 

 that mosquito larvae were killed by it, and in 1892 con- 

 ducted an experiment upon a larger scale in the Catskill 

 Mountains, indicating the quantity of kerosene necessary 

 for a given water-surface and showing that adult mosqui- 

 toes are captured b}^ a kerosene film ; that is to say, they 

 alight on the surface of the water in an attempt to de- 

 posit eggs and are destroyed b}^ the kerosene before the 

 eggs are laid. A full account of this last experiment was 

 published in Insect Life, vol. ii., 1892, and, since it at- 

 tracted considerable notice in newspapers, additional ex- 

 periments by others upon a larger or smaller scale were 

 speedily made. Mr. H. E. Weed rid the college campus 

 of the Mississippi Agricultural College of mosquitoes by 

 the treatment with kerosene of eleven large water-tanks. 

 Dr. John B. Smith recorded in Insect Life (vol. vi). suc- 

 cess with this remedy in two cases on Long Island. Pro- 

 fessor V. L. Kellogg conducted a similar series of experi- 

 ments upon the campus of Stanford University, California, 

 in which cases jDost-holes filled with surface water were 

 giving out large numbers of mosquitoes, but when a little 

 kerosene was poured into each hole the mosquito plague 

 was almost immediately alleviated. Kev. John D. Long, 

 at Oak Island Beach, Long Island Sound, and Mr. W. E. 

 Hopson, near Stratford, Conn., conducted large-scale ex- 

 periments with good results. Mr. E. M. Eeese, in Balti- 

 more, treated open sewers with kerosene with excellent 

 results. A little later (1898), Mr. W. C Kerr, on Staten 

 Island, did some large-scale kerosene work upon ponds 

 and swamps, which resulted most satisfactorily. In 1897 



