Malaria Problem.

“The Bionomics of The Megarhines.”

THE following appeared in “The Syd ney Morning Herald” of August 7, 1929: — Air. C. L. Pemberton, an American entomolo gist, who has been engaged in research work in New Guinea for 16 months, arrived in Sydney by the "Calulu” on August 7, 1929, with 250 mosquito-killing insects, which he hopes will do a great deal to rid Hawaii of mosquitoes.

The insect itself is a type of mosquito, but does not suck blood, the adults living mostly on flowers. When in the wriggler or young stage they live on mosquito larvae, which keeps down the number of mosquitoes to a marked extent.

Mr. Pemberton first discovered these insects in the forest about ten miles from Rabaul, in New Britain. The eggs were laid in pockets of water which had gathered in the crevices of trees, and a novel method was employed to trap the wrigglers. Kerosene tins were nailed to trees in the forest and, being soon filled with rain, they made a good imitation of the natural haunt of the insect. The tins were soon visited by mosquitoes for depositing their larvae, and these in turn were followed by the enemy insect.

Mr. Pemberton was thus able to make a daily collection of the eggs of the parasitical insect.

Malaria is the greatest problem in New Guinea. Probably, it reduces the efficiency of the European population by 25 to 30 per cent.

Recently, Mr. W. R. Carpenter, head or the big Islands trading firm, asked the New Guinea authorities if anything had ever been done to make use of the parasite referred to by Mr. Pemberton.

This brought a statement from the Public Health Laboratory, Rabaul, to the effect that Mr. Pemberton’s preda cious mosquito was actually discovered and identified in Rabaul in 1923; that “the usual extravagant claims of the lay press," relative to Mr. Pemberton’s mosquito, had been noted in 1929: that “Mr. Pemberton may indeed have dis covered new facts in the bionomics of the megarhines, and even new species”; and that the predacious mosquitoes under notice were not found in ground water, and, therefore, were not consid ered of value in combating the an opheles mosquito, “which is exclusively a ground-water breeder.”

The gentleman who signed the report acknowledged, however, that the preda cious mosquito might be induced to change its habits; and that “it is pos sible that after generations of breeding in captivity a variant might be pro duced which might do this” (breed naturally in ground-water).

This is another outstanding example ot the maddening policy which has held sway in Rabaul for years. No attempt, evidently, has been made to ascertain whether Mr. Pemberton really did “dis cover new facts in the bionomics of the Megarhines”; or what was the result of Mr. Pemberton’s experiments with the mosquitoes he took away; or whether it is possible to develop, from the insect under notice, a species which will attack the anopheles in its breeds ing-places, and thus do something towards the solution of one of the world’s greatest problems.

The subject is likely to have attention at Canberra shortly; and possibly the Public Health Laboratory at Rabaul will be given something more to do than indulging in lofty scientific sneers about the “usual extravagances of art icles in the lay press.”