90 
ANOTHER MOSQUITO EXPERIMENT. 
By L. O. Howard, Washington, D. C. 
Just a£ "one swallow does not make a summer,'' one experiment does 
not fully satisfy the economic entomologist of the value of a remedy. 
At the last meeting of this association I laid before you the facts con- 
cerning an experiment in applying kerosene oil to the surface of a mos- 
quito breeding-pool and argued from its results that in many localities 
where the breeding places are circumscribed the mosquito plague may 
be largely averted. 
The publication of this paper excited considerable interest in the 
subject and brought me some little correspondence from individuals 
who considered themselves advantageously located for the testing of 
the remedy on a larger scale than I had been able to attempt. Dr. 
Wooster Beach, of New York City, wrote last fall that it appeared to 
him quite possible to treat large tracts of land in the manner proposed, 
and solicited Government aid in locating breeding places in Westches- 
ter County along Long Island Sound, provided he could interest prop- 
erty holders and raise a small fund to be expended in the purchase of 
kerosene and the wages of men to apply it under expert supervision. 
The necessary aid was promised him, with Dr. Biley's sanction, and he 
made a strong effort to arouse the popular interest by articles in the 
local papers ; but either through nonsusceptibility to mosquito poison 
on the part of his neighbors, or through indifference arising from other- 
causes, he failed to collect the fund, and an interesting experiment on a 
large scale was thwarted. 
Another very satisfactory experiment upon a small scale, however, 
has been made the present season. But before recounting the facts in 
the case I must advert to the chronic disinclination on the part of the 
property holders of a given neighborhood to admit that they are trou- 
bled by mosquitoes. I spoke in Insect Life last fall of a New Jersey 
mosquito remedy, recounting the killing by its means of seventy-five 
mosquitoes on the ceiling of my room in a New Jersey town, the name of 
which I thoughtlessly published. By the next mail after the issue had 
reached that part of the country I received letters from two residents 
of the town warning me that I would be mobbed by the inhabitants if I 
ever set foot in the place again, that is, provided my note should hap- 
pen to be republished in some more widely read journal than Insect 
Life. New Jersey and mosquitoes had been coupled in my mind since 
earliest boyhood, and I was totally unprepared to learn that our culti- 
vated and refined neighbors were sensitive on the point. 
However, after this experience I was not surprised to find that the 
gentleman who conducted the experiment which I am about to detail 
desired his name, and particularly his locality, to be kept from the 
public eye. I may state, however, that it is within two hours' ride 
