THE MOSQUITO PEST.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 305, 26 December 1928, Page 10

THE MOSQUITO PEST.

MUNICIPAL BREEDING.

EXCELLENT PROVISION FOB

THE SUMMER.

PUBLIC HATCHERIES IN

AUCKLAND.

jA WORD OF WARNING TO OFFICIALS

(By VIGILANT.)

A month or two ago the Department of Health circularised all the local bodies requesting them to give special care to mosquitoes during the coming summer, but I am amazed to find that this advics is being carried out literally. In other words, two local bodies in my neighbourhood, the City Council and an adjoining borough council, are retaining excellent breeding establishments for the propagation of our midnight visitors. Each is a seething mass of liquid corruption,

one being already populated with hundreds of "wrigglers" in various stages of development, and the other will doubtless be in the same condition in a few days if this warm weather lasts. These eminently suitable breeding places are two horse troughs, both within a mile of my residence as the crow flies, although I cannot measure the distance as the mosquito flies, not being acquainted with the "wave length" on which she travels on her marauding expeditions.

The troughs have not been cleaned out for years, by the look of them, so it is no wonder that they have now reached perfection as mosquito hatcheries, although they serve no other purpose except for an occasional dog to jump in for a cooling bath. The other day I saw a stock driver ride up to one, with his horse covered with lather, evidently returning from Westfield, but although obviously famished with thirst it only gave the water one sniff and then turned away. So none can say the trough serves the purpose for which it is intended.

i The contents of these troughs should not be thrown away, for they would I>3 a useful exhibit in the Memorial Museum as a lasting memorial to the ingenuity of the neighbours in getting rid of rubbish which they consider unsuitable for the destructor. Dust off the road and hair off bathing dogs would give an object lesson on how to provide a refreshing drink to the horse.

Surely the S.P.C.A. could take a hand in the game and impress on the local bodies concerned the enormity of their neglect. Personally I think no horse trough should be stagnant, as all the troughs round Auckland are. They should be cleaned out once a year, but far more important, they should be constantly running over a lip overflow. This would not take more than a few hundred gallons a week, but it would get rid of all the chaff and froth from the horses' mouths, and all the light dust before these get waterlogged. Other local bodies should take immediate action to remove all breeding places in their districts. They are only too easy to find, and probably the most fertile are the ordinary gully traps which take roof water. The waste water gully traps can do no harm, for they are filled and charged too often for the mosquito to breed, but the ordinarv rainwater gully traps is a menace Mv gully traps are safe enough, for I always put kerosene in them whenever a week elapses without rain, and this is probably one of the main reasons why mv household has not seen, heard or felt a mosquito for years. Local bodies and the Health Department should get -oin^