20 PREVENTIVE AND REMEDIAL WORK AGAINST MOSQUITOES. 



water should not be allowed to stand for more than a day or so at a 

 time. In the South the water accumulating under water tanks 

 should be treated or drained away. The urns in the cemeteries at 

 New Orleans have been found to breed mosquitoes abundantly. The 

 holy water fonts in Roman Catholic churches, especially in the South, 

 have commonly been found to breed mosquitoes; in some places 

 sponges have 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. In slightly 

 marshy ground a favorite breeding place is in the footprints of cattle 

 and horses. In one country village, which contained many small 

 vegetable gardens in a clay soil, during the rainy season mosquitoes 

 were found breeding abundantly in the water accumulating in the 

 furrows in the gardens. 



Even in the house mosquitoes breed in many places where they 

 may be overlooked. Where the water in flower vases is not fre- 

 quently 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 

 frequently in use, and they will issue from the sewer traps in back 

 yards in city houses during dry spells in the summer time when 

 sewers have not recently been flushed by heavy rains. In ware- 

 houses 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 a 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 occasional application of kerosene. The same 

 thing may be said of cesspools. Cesspools are frequently covered 

 with stone and cement, but the slightest break in the cement, the 

 slightest crack, will allow the entrance of these minute insects and 

 unlimited breeding often goes on in these pools without a suspicion 

 of the cause of the abundance of mosquitoes in the neighborhood. 

 The writer 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 pro- 

 prietor of the estate, who replied that mosquitoes could not possibly 

 gain entrance to the water. Later in the evening, about dusk, the 



