The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1911-01-24
But Popular Indifference, insufficient Power and
Other Things Play to the Hand
Of the Skeetcr Bug.

This happens every time the mos
quito pest has been anywhere near
eliminated from the residence districts.
1t is a tedious work TO go through al
most whole city and clean out every
little hole that contains water, and by
the time the task is approaching an
end the cloud of skeeters is again
blown back from the rice fields and
commence to breed in those very same
holes.
All the drainage sewers with their
frequent openings into the street, three
quarters of the time filed with dead
water, must be oiled weekly. The
traveller and other varieties of palms,
broad leaved bushes and trees and
similar plants are paradises for the
mosquito mother who takes. a pride in
laying two hundred eggs in the small
est space possible.
Nothing Permanent.
New solutions are continually being
prepared and experimental with by the
board, but the best oil that it has to
work with at present is non.effective
after eleven or so days and if the
water is still there the pool must be
oiled again.
The oil operates by covering the pool
with an air proof coating through which
the wiggler can not get his inquisitive
little proboscis to get air. AS a con-
sequence he is a. corpse at the end of
few hours.
, The open pools afford no trouble at
all. These are kept filed with the top
minnows which breed almost as fast
as the mosquitoes themselves, thus
affording reserve supply that is rush
ed from one place to another as fast
as they are needed. Sometimes it takes
several days for them to get acquaint-
ed with new quarters and during this
time they are on strict diet. Then
the wigglers are fatter and juicier
than ever and the topJninnow, over
coming his bashfulness, proceeds to eat
them up, and whereas he is perfectly
transparent when he starts in, he is a
deep black when he is through. All
the wigglers that were formerly in the
pond are now surrounded by himself.
Mosquito Paradise.
| 1t is the swampy lands such as that
above the duck ponds in the McCully
tract where the Waikiki car goes from
King to Kalakaua that are the worst
| places This is almost impossible to
reach as it is too muddy for a man
to walk through and, except in places,
there are no pools in which to place
fish. Should an inspector essay the
feat, he would leave a small hole in
which mosquitoes would breed by the
thousand every time he would pull his
foot out of the mire.
Another handicap which the inspec.
tors are working against is the indiffer-
ence with which they are treated by
good portion of the public. Many
inspectors have been abused by the
owners of property when they insisted
on going through and cleaning out the
bad places. Other people constantly
call up the board and protest about the
premises of neighbors, but win do moth
ing with their own.
| In the richer districts, the owners
leave the job of cleaning up the prem
/ ises TO their yard boys and servants,
who never fail not to do it, and it is
through these and the balance of the
residence districts where the inspec.
tors have their hardest work
1t is probable that a bill will be
presented to the legislature asking the
prohibition of rice patches outside of
limits where thew can not be handled,
but until that time Pilikia is abroad
in the land.