The Two-winged Flies 
3°9 
an incurable and hideously deforming kind of filariasis, from which quite 
one-third of the natives of Samoa suffer, being disseminated chiefly (so 
far as our present knowledge permits us to affirm) by mosquitoes of the 
species Stegomyia jasciata. 
With a few English investigators and our own government and state 
entomologists in the lead, a great campaign is being waged against mos¬ 
quitoes. Despite the hosts of the enemy, its great capacity for providing 
new individuals to supply the places of the fallen, its effective means of 
locomotion, and its easily managed de¬ 
partment of commissary, local foraging 
being exclusively relied on for sustain¬ 
ing its armies, we are making headway 
against it. Our modes of attack are 
various: by draining swamps, ponds, 
Fig. 416. Fig. 417. 
Fig. 416.—A short-beaked mosquito, Corethra sp. (From life; four times natural size. 
Fig. 417.—Pupa (at left) and larva (at right) of short-beaked mosquito, Corethra sp. 
(From life; six times natural size.) 
and puddles we restrict the multiplication of these pests, and rid particular 
localities of them altogether; by introducing into ponds and pools which 
cannot be drained substances, as kerosene, etc., which are poisonous to mos¬ 
quitoes, we kill them in their adolescence; by encouraging and disseminating 
their natural enemies, such as dragon-flies, we pursue them in their own 
elements, water and air. Mosquitoes do not fly far; when abundant in a 
locality, breeding-places are to be looked for close at hand. The open rain¬ 
water barrel, a little puddle by the lawn hydrant, a cistern with unscreened 
openings, all of these are welcome invitations to the mosquito to come and 
rear a large family. Put close screen tops over water in cisterns and barrels; 
