3202463Omniana/Volume 1 — Mosquitos1812Robert Southey

35. Mosquitos.

The plague of flies is of all plagues the most intolerable. Settlements and cities have been deserted in consequence of it. The mosquito, which is of all the race the most noxious, breeds in the water. Might it not be possible at the seasons when they emerge, and when they deposit their eggs upon the surface, to diminish their numbers by pouring oil upon great standing waters and large rivers, in those places which are most infested by them?