The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-08-19
MOSQUITOES IN HAWAII
Continued from page %

I
| garding the place as a possible source
of mosquitoes, however, the conditions
were sufficient for it alone to play an
important part in the general discom-
fort of the surrounding community.
This second pool was found, by aid of
the dip-net and ladle to contain at
/ least, several thousand larvae. Here
and there about the margin the egg
| clusters We're found the following
morning.
The conditions regarding the temper
allure, location and source of the water
were exactly the same and the writer
can account for the great difference in
the numbers of the larvae in the two
| instances in no other way than that
the gravid female chose the pool con-
tanning the decaying vegetable matter
| in preference to the one containing the
clear water. These places were prompt
ly filled in and removed for once and
all time as possible breeding places for
mosquitoes.
The places mentioned by different
writers as the breeding places of this
species of mosquito are water-tanks,
tubs and buckets under water-taps.
wells, cisterns, barrels, open sewers,
cess pools. swamps, small pools, way
side bitches, empty oil tins, biscuit
tins, sardine and tomato cans, gourds.
flower pots, vases, cuspidors, broken
and unbroken bottles, crockery, pot
terry and tins on rubbish heaps, hollow
stumpS post-holes and other excava-
tons left untitled, fire-buckets, cutters
and caves which are imperfect or which
have become clogged, water-traps in
sinks and closets, watering -troughs for
stock, neglected lily ponds and foun-
tairls, and catch basins from leaders.
Aside from these typical places the
writer has taken the larvae from tins
containing water placed under the legs
of tables and meat-safes as a protec-
ton against ants, a common practice
here, from urns and flower vases on
graves in cemeteries, from beneath
racks used in washing wagons from
water-butts and sunken reservoirs in
blacksmith shops and carriage facto-
ries used in cooling horse-shoes and
wagon-tires, and from the hoof prints
of COW near the edge of rice field.
AS to the amount of water necessary
for breeding purposes, the writer has
found this mosquito breeding in a
small beaker continuing less than three
ounces of water. A person might rea-
son that if small container would
breed mosquitoes, larger one
would be even greater source. This
is no doubt true when comparing a
small beaker containing a few ounces
with, for example, a tub of water, but
as FAR as the experience of the
writer goes, a tub of standing
water may be as prolific breeding
place as a. pond or pool containing
many hundred times the volume of wa |
ter. Close inspection and treatment of
the typical breeding places, mainly ar
as enumerated above, will rid .
any infested locality of this mosquito.
The frequent rains which only occa-
sionally are abundant enough to form
streams, do form, however, natural
places in the uneven beds of
streams and bitches and surface of the
ground. This is especially true in the
nakai districts having a costal plain
If any width. In the mauka regions
hese collections of water are not per-
nanent owing to the prevailing steep I
slope and the general looseneSS of the
oil affording natural drainage. These
mall collections of water on the lower {
evels. of long duration during the I
Amy season, create numerous breeding ]
'laces for this species which continue I
Until the water disappears under the /
elton of the wind and sun in the drier {
easons. Communities situated in such f
1calities in the Islands have a more I
erious problem before them in any I
fort to reduce the numbers of mos Io
uitoes Filling in draining or the $
egular use of oil during a season of il
ain are the only remedies for these @
laces. C
History of Culex pipiens.-The t
gigs of the night mosquito are easi- V
: observed in the places where they f
ccur. They appear a raft-hke mass c
eating on the surface of the water a
nd resemble a small piece of char t
pal about one-fourth of an inch in t
myth. This manner of depositing the t
zgs is characteristic of the members Ii
: the genus Culex- The egg-mass or C
raft is the product of one female and
ccording to TheobaId is laid soon s
fter sunrise and also at dusk if the /,
ather is warm and STILL CA Mono t
-aph of the Culicidae of the World. Fl
heobald 1909 Examination under a b
and-lens shows distinct structure Il
the mass. it being made up of in tt
vidual eggs standing close together b
an upright position. the bottom of n
lie egg being larger than the top. thus fl
aking the raft boat-shaped. Each k
1T is estimated to contain from two a
three hundred eggs the individual fl
-g being hardly visible to one unac- .,
'stomed to looking at objects so in