208 MOSQUITOES 



ship of Mr. W. C. Kerr, of the firm of Westinghouse, 

 Church, Kerr & Co., New York, to which we have several 

 times referred, considerable drainage of fresh-water 

 swami^s above the seacoast bluffs was carried on with 

 g-reat success and at a minimum of expense. This work, 

 together with the use of kerosene upon larger pools, re- 

 sulted in complete relief from the attacks of the fresh- 

 water moscpiitoes, Avhich during the early summer had 

 always been numerous and ferocious, but down the bluffs 

 below the Club there was a large area of salt-marsh, and 

 in the higher portions of this marsh-land the brackish 

 water-mosquito of the Atlantic coast {Cuk-x sollicitans) 

 breeds abundantly and puts in its appearance up to the 

 end of July in numbers. An attempt by members of the 

 club was made to buy this land in order to dike and drain 

 it, with the idea that it could subsequently be let to truck 

 growers, access to New York markets being easy and 

 profits for truck farming- in that vicinity being great. In 

 the attempt, however, they found a singular obstinacy on 

 the part of the owners of this Avorthless land, and the 

 attempt was, at least temporarily, abandoned. 



A successful effort of this kind, however, has been re- 

 corded by the writer in a previous publication. It comes 

 from one of the editors of the Scientific American, who 

 writes as follows : 



In the town of Stratford, Conn., where I have resided for the 

 past forty-five years, we have been greatly plagued by swarms of 

 mosquitoes, so great, in fact, that the " Stratford mosquito" be- 

 came a well-known characteristic of Stratford. We have in the 

 southern part of our town, bordering on the sound, several acres 



