N. J. Mosquito Extermination Association 6i 



Now Mr. Jackson brings out the idea that some of that breed- 

 ing may be unimportant, especially of mosquitoes, not worth the 

 time and trouble to get rid of. As a matter of fact in my ex- 

 perience, the number of times that you find territans, solid ter- 

 ritans breeding and no economic species among them, while 

 not entirely infinitesimal, is pretty nearly so ; and that the ad- 

 vantage which Mr. Jackson pointed out to be obtained from the 

 identification of larvae is of comparatively little practical value. 



The scheme of the night collection is nothing more than a check 

 on the fundamental inspection work that locates the brood. I would 

 recall to Mr. Jackson's mind and to yours that there was a time in 

 the County of Essex when, with all the careful inspection work 

 that was being done, mosquitoes were held down until about the 

 middle of July, and then all at once, over night, there would be 

 an enormous brood come into Essex County, and nobody could 

 more than nearly guess at their source. It was the collection 

 method used in tracing those mosquitoes that told us where those 

 ^ mosquitoes came from, and finding where they came from has 

 been followed by measures of eliminating that breeding. My 

 whole point in this thing is that the night collection is a checking 

 scheme. It gives us more information, information that we 

 need. It is not substituted for by the identification of larvae. 

 The identification of larvae is important in the beginning of mos- 

 quito work in a given locality, until we know that as a rule 999 

 times out of every thousand the mosquitoes found breeding in 

 that water are economic species, and then we kill every bird we 

 can find ; the night collection method is a check up of the results 

 of that killing and to indicate to us not only what those mos- 

 quitoes are — that is only a step — but possibly where they came 

 from. Maybe we have gotten an invasion from another terri- 

 tory ; maybe we have a large breeding place within the territory. 



I point out a second occurrence within the County of Essex 

 and. the County of Union. There was a time that North Eliza- 

 beth and the Weequahic section of Essex was badly infested with 

 pipiens for weeks on end, summer after summer, and nobody 

 could more than guess at the cause. The area was a large sewage- 

 charged piece of salt marsh and inspectors worked around it, and, 

 perhaps in some cases, through it, although that was diflfiicult, 

 and the breeding was not found; but by a system of night col- 

 lections, by tracing down increasing density, it was found that 

 the heavy density was at the edge of that salt marsh, and within 

 two days of that time we sent one of the inspectors into that 

 territory and he found breeding in immense quantities. 



Now there are two separate cases where the collection scheme 

 has done the business. ( Aprplause.) 



