53 
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 where 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 pits, and all danger from 
mosquitoes will have passed. 
‘‘In many houses in Baltimore, Md., the sewage drains first into 
wells or sinks in the back yard, 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 
the stagnant contents of the sinks, have free egress into the open air 
back of the houses. Hence parts of Baltimore much farther removed 
from either running or stagnant water than certain parts of Washing- 
ton, where no mosquitoes are found, are terribly mosquito ridden, and 
sleep without mosquito bars is, from May to December, almost impos- 
sible. Specimens of Culex pungens captured November 5 in such a 
privy as described have been brought to the writer from Baltimore by 
one of his assistants, Mr. R. M. Reese. 
‘*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, respec- 
tively, 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 accom- 
plished. With such concerted action, however, there seems to be no 
reason why the mosquito plague could not be greatly diminished in 
many, if not most, parts of Baltimore at a very small expense. Usually 
one well serves two houses, the privies being built in pairs, so that one 
treatment would suffice for two dwellings. 
On ponds of any size the quickest and most perfect method of form- 
ing a film of kerosene will be to spray the oil over the surface of the 
water. 
‘* Drainage.—The remedy which depends upon draining breeding 
places needs no extended discussion. Naturally the draining off of the 
water of pools will prevent mosquitoes from breeding there, and the 
possibility of such draining and the means by which it may be done will 
vary with each individual case. The writer is informed that an elabo- 
rate bit of work which has been done at Virginia Beach bears on this 
method. Behind the hotels at this place, the hotels themselves front- 
ing upon the beach, was a large fresh-water lake, which, with its 
adjoining swamps, was a source of mosquito supply, and it was further 
feared that it made the neighborhood malarious. Two canals were cut 
from the lake to the ocean, and by means of machinery the water of the 
