Principles and Practice of Mosquito Control: being a Handbook to the British Mosquito Control Institute

Abstract

FROM the British Mosquito Control Institute at Hayling Island, Hampshire, has been recently issued this handbook on the principles and practice of mosquito control, which includes also a brief account of the inception of the Institute and of the results of its work. The Institute owes its existence to the success of an anti-mosquito campaign which was initiated at Hayling Island in 1920 to deal with the local mosquito nuisance which had become so intolerable that the inhabitants of the central residential district found it impossible to sit in their gardens in the late afternoons or in the evenings. Mr. F. W. Edwards, of the British Museum (Natural History), expressed the opinion that the trouble was probably due to the salt-marsh species Aedes (Ochlerotatus) caspius and A. (O.) detritus, and examination of some thousands of adult mosquitoes captured in the residential area during September and October proved that the latter species was almost entirely responsible. To Mr. John F. Marshall belongs the credit of beginning in 1920 investigations preliminary to the inauguration of methods of control. In April 1921, at a meeting of some seventy inhabitants, it was decided to institute a systematic campaign against the mosquitoes; committees were elected to deal with the various branches of the work, and a circular was issued to every householder on the island explaining the objects of the campaign and appealing for the assistance of voluntary workers and for financial support. A laboratory was improvised by Mr. Marshall, where mosquitoes could be examined and investigations on their breeding habits carried out.

Principles and Practice of Mosquito Control: being a Handbook to the British Mosquito Control Institute.

By John F. Marshall. Pp. viii + 39 + 20 plates. (Hayling Island, Hants.: British Mosquito Control Institute, 1927.) 2s. 6d.