Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-09-03
DAILY REC0RD- UNION
nRAGoN-FLY AND MOSQUITO.

DIR. r. II. Lamborn, Ph. d., has been
laboring for some years in a quiet but per
sistent way, to discover some means of
mitigating the sufferings of mankind that
have their beginning and their life in the
assault of that pestiferous insect, the mos
quito. The work of the scientist has been
crystallized at last into book form, and in
the volume he tells us where these insects
originate how long they live and how we
may best resist their attacks.
But after all, the doctors book will
prove somewhat disappointing to the I'M
scientific reader He arrives at the con-
clusion that the best way to fight the mos
quito is to assail him in his breeding
places, and by spraying these with coal oil
and other fluids destroy him before be can
send out his amazons to annoy man; for
we learn anew from the doctors essay that
it is the female mosquito alone of which
men have to complain
Draining wet places. spraying the
edges of marsh lands, flushing the
waters where the insect loves to set
up his home, encouraging the propagation
of certain classes of birds and giving
attention to general sanitary laws, will
greatly tend to the extirmination of the
mosquito. But it will strike most people
that some of these remedies are without
the reach of the mass of the people. What
good will it do, for instance, to spend all
ones substance sowing petroleum on
marshes, river banks and ponds, if ones
neighbor, half mile away, neglects
single breeding place no more than six or
eight feet across, perhaps, whence may
come mosquitoes in sufficient number to
keep hundred thousand hands busy dab
bling this way and that to prevent the pre-
sentation of bills? 1t is somewhat con-
soling, of course, to know that the male
mosquito does honor to his sex by attend
ing strictly to his own business, and ignor-
ing the existence of mankind For, as has
been said, he leaves all the annoyance
part of mosquito duty to his sisters, his
female cousins and his aunts, and thus far
they have proved equal to the task nature
has imposed upon them.
The doctor year or more ago offered
prizes for competition by entomologists in
essays upon the mosquito pest and the
best methods of destroying it. His hope
was that entomologists would discover the
dragon-hy to be so much the enemy of the
mosquito that the former could be Guilt
waited for the purpose of wreaking ven
geance for man upon the universal enemy
The first prize was won by Mrs. Eugene
Aaron Of Philadelphia for an essay on 1.-THE
Dipterous Enemies of Man, thesecond was
divided between Archibald C. Weeks and
William Beutenmuller of New York, for
papers on "The Utility of Dragon-fies as
Destroyers of Mosquitoes" These papers
are embodied in Dr. Landlords interesting
book. But none of them give any hope to
the belief that had been entertained that
the dragon-hy can be counted upon as
specific for the mosquito nuisance. That
they do assail and consume countless mill
ions of the pests is true; but they come at
odd times, are erratic in their work, go as
quickly as they come, and resist effort to
cultivate them and increase their number.
So, then, We must continue to fight the
culicide in the old-fashioned way, with
screens and pillows and towels, and the
beating of our own cheeks and the rough
boxing of our own ears.
Mr.. Beutenmuller, who is of the New
York Museum of Natural History, devotes
his paper mainly to the dragon-Ay remedy
for the mosquito, but doubts if man can
ever cultivate these mosquito-hawks, as
the Indians term them, so as to make
them efficient servitors. 1t is something
worth while knowing, however, that but
for the service the courageous DEVILS
darning-needle, as the dragon-ny is some
times called, life would not be worth lIv-
ing, for mosquitoes would take man captive
in the fullest sense of the word. Mr..
Beutenmuller does show, however, that
about hotels and residences if lanterns are
arranged 10 attract mosquitoes, and pans
of kerosene and other mixtures are then
set out, the pests can be immensely reduced
in number. A very little petroleum, also,
on the stagnant waters in which the mos
quitoes breed, will spread out in great,
broad, thin film and destroy the Larvae.
None of the writers in DR.. Landlords
book find any good in the mosquito. He
appears to defy the supposed laws of ma
ture and to exist for evil deeds only. Not
so the house-hy, the fesh-fy, the blow-fy,
and their thousand allies, for they labor
necessarily purifying the air, and "avert-
ing the summer brood of cholera, diph-
liberia, and typhoid fevers" To these man
is indebted; to the mosquito he owes only
the duty of labor to exterminate the en-
tire family of the pest
HAS it come to this, that Sacramento is
D,,cl-lav,.ad2 Haya ,,a ,oaoloJ Lo4