MOSQUITOES AND FLEAS. 19 



case post holes filled with surface water were treated, with the result 

 that the mosquito plague was almost immediately alleviated. 



Additional experiments on a somewliat larger scale have been made 

 by Eev. John D. Long at Oak Island Beach, Long Island Sound, and 

 by Mr. W. R. Hopson, near Bridgeport, Conn., also on the shores of 

 Long Island Sound, the experiments in both cases indicating the effi 

 cacy of the remedy when applied intelligently. I have not been able 

 to learn the details of Mr. Hopson's operations, but am told that they 

 included extensive draining as well as the use of kerosene. 



It is not, however, the great sea marshes along the coast, where mos- 

 quitoes breed in countless numbers, which we can expect to treat by 

 this method, but the inland places, where tlie mosquito supply is derived 

 from comparatively small swamps and circumscribed pools. In most 

 localities people endure the torment or direct their remedies against 

 the adult insect only, without the slightest attempt to investigate the 

 source of the supply, when the very first step should be the undertak- 

 ing of such an investigation. In ^'Gleanings in Bee Culture" (October 

 1, 1895) we notice the statement in the California column that in some 

 California towns the pit or vault behind water-closets is subject to 

 flushing with water during the irrigation of the land near by. A 

 period of several weeks elapses before more water is turned in, and in 

 the meantime the water becomes stagnant and the breeding place of 

 millions of mosquitoes. Then, as the correspondent says, ''people go 

 around wondering wliere all the mosquitoes come from, put up screens, 

 burn buhach, and make a great fuss." Nothing could be easier than 

 to pour an ounce of kerosene into each of these i)its, and all danger 

 from mosquitoes will have passed. 



In many houses in Baltimore, Md., the sewage drains first into wells 

 or sinks in the backyard, and thence in some cases into sewers, and in 

 other cases is pumped out periodically. These wells invariably have 

 open privies built over them, and the mosquitoes, which breed in tlie 

 stagnant contents of the sinks, have free egress into the open air back 

 of the houses. Hence parts of Baltimore much further removed from 

 either running or stagnant water than certain parts of Washington, 

 where no mosquitoes are found, are terribly mosquito ridden, and sleep 

 without mosquito bars is, from ]\lay to December, almost impossible. 

 Specimens of Culex piingens captured November 5 in such a ])rivy as 

 described have been brought to the writer from Baltimore by one of his 

 assistants, Mr. Iv. M. Keese. 



Kerosene has been tried by Mr. Reese in one case in Baltimore, and 

 two treatments of a privy made about May 1 and June 1, respectivelj^? 

 seemed to diminish the numbers of the pest in that particular house; 

 but without concerted action of all the householders in a given block 

 (all the houses, be it remembered, being exactly alike in the method of 

 sewage disposal) no great amount of good could be accomplished. 

 With such concerted action, however, there seems to be no reason whv 



