CONTROL OF DOMESTIC MOSQUITOES 389 
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. 
Even in the house mosquitoes breed in many places where they may be over- 
looked. Where the water in flower vases is not frequently changed mosquitoes 
will breed. They will breed in water pitchers in unused guest rooms. They will 
breed in the tanks in water closets when these 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 of city 
houses during dry spells in the summer time, when sewers have not recently 
been flushed by heavy rains. In warehouses and on docks they breed abundantly 
in the 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 the stone wall to form a cheval-de-frise, water 
accumulates in the bottle fragments after rains and mosquitoes will breed there. 
Old disused wells in gardens are frequent sources of mosquito supply even where 
apparently carefully covered, and here the nuisance is easily abated by the occa- 
sional application of kerosene. The same thing may be said of cesspools. Cess- 
pools are frequently covered with stone and cement, but the slightest break in 
the cement will allow the entrance of these insects. Breeding often goes on in 
cesspools without the cause of the abundance of mosquitoes in the neighborhood 
being suspected. One of the writers remembers, for example, on one occasion 
walking through a New Jersey garden and noticing a covered cesspool with a 
slight crack in the cement. He remarked upon the danger to the proprietor of 
the estate, who replied that mosquitoes could not possibly gain entrance to the 
water. Later in the evening, about dusk, the same spot was passed again and a 
cloud of mosquitoes was seen issuing from the crack so abundantly that at a 
little distance it seemed like a stream of smoke. A little kerosene put a stop to 
further breeding. 
Fountains and ornamental ponds are frequent breeding-places, and here the 
introduction of fish, as indicated in another place, is usually all-sufficient. It 
frequently happens, however, that the grass is allowed to grow down into the 
edges of ornamental ponds and mosquito larve find refuge among the vegeta- 
tion and so escape the fish. Broad-leaved water plants are also often grown in 
such ponds, and where these broad leaves lie flat upon the surface of the water, 
as they frequently do, one portion of a given leaf may be submerged so that 
mosquito lave may breed freely in the water over the submerged portion of the 
leaf, protected from fish by the leaf itself. It is necessary, therefore, to keep the 
edges of such ornamental ponds free from vegetation and to choose aquatic 
plants which will not afford mosquito larvee protection. In many small country 
towns, even where there is a water supply, tanks are to be found under the roofs, 
to supply bathrooms. Such tanks should be screened, since mosquitoes gain en- 
trance to the tankroom, either through dormer windows or by flying up through 
