NO FISHING HERE!

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 68, 11 October 1940, Page 11

NO FISHING HERE!

The Mosquito Fleet On "Mare Nostrum’"’

HEN Mussolini talks of Mare Nostrum and the Italian fleet, the quiver that goes through the _ diplomatic centres of the British Empire no doubt has repercussions in the Ministerial offices in Wellington. But the Mediterranean is on the other side of the world. If they only knew it, our Ministers of the Crown are much closer to what we in the Broadcasting Service might well call "Our Sea," and to a different sort of fleet. This is a story of Broadcasting House, which is not yet a house. It has neither walls, floors, ceilings, nor gargoyles about the parapets, It is just a big hole in the ground near Parliament Buildings and will remain so pending the ultimate discomforture of Herr Hitler. The hole is filled with water. The water is stagnant. By means best known to themselves, this good news (for them) has been broadcast through the mosquito world. Our Pond is invaded. The mosquito fleet is established. Slow-Moving but Deadly It is not built for speed, this fleet. Its armament is carried on slow-moving rafts, driven only by the wind, and whatever tides seepage may cause in the NBS Ocean. But its armament has a high potential of power and the anxious minorities along the shores have watched it grow with some alarfh. The Health Department has become interested, and a unilateral treaty with the Broadcasting Department has followed. Under the terms of the agreement it has been arranged that the Health Department should govern foreign policy, the Broadcasting Department should finance operations, while the Dominion Museum, third party in the triangular system of axes, should fire the guns. In plain language: the Health Department asked for action, the Broadcasting Department turned to the Dominion Museum for help, and the Museum’s expert on fish produced the answer to the problem. Goldfish Wouldn’t Do These tiny rafts of mosquito larvae had to be sunk, he said, in so many words, It would not do to drown them in oil, because the oil might adversely affect the foundations, especially where the concrete would later be joined with more concrete. It was necessary therefore to find some little fish that would make itself a happy home in the pond and eat the larvae. Goldfish would be the layman’s first thought. But no. Goldfish are bottomfeeders. It was necessary to find a fish that would feed off the surface, where the mosquitoes were waiting the right

moment to turn into a sort of tadpole thing that swims around for a while before it grows wings and flies out onto the backs of Members’ necks. Regrettable Habits The answer came from the rice fields of Hawaii and is spelt Gambusia. It is a little fish, two or three inches long, but it is a very interesting fish. It specialises in mosquitoes, not to mention the toes of small boys willing to oblige it with a nibble, or the flesh of any other fish willing to provide a cannibalistic banquet. Small as he is, Gambusia gladly concedes several pounds and fifteen and a-half ounces and makes a fight for it, Fish ten times his size are easy meat for him, in both senses of the word. Regrettable as it may seem, these reprehensible habits make it impossible to reward him adequately for his fine work against the mosquito. He has to be kept locked up. He is actually kept strictly under lock and key in New Zealand, and produced only for such special jobs as destroying the mosquito fleet in our lake. He is not even allowed to travel by himself. The ichthyologist who arranged to pit him against our mosquitoes had to go to Auckland to get him personally, and bring him back under close supervision. Once in the pond, he cannot escape. There is no outlet, and the walls are high, Little Boys, Beware! Although we should like to, we cannot imagine either Ministers or Members or even Messengers sitting on the clay banks with lengths of string and bent pins baited with that pretty coloured tape which they use for tying

things up. So the fish probably won’t leave the pond that way. And if any small boys go near, one of two things will happen to them: (1) A Great Big Policeman will come along and indict them under the Public Safety Regulation, 1850, or (2) Mr. Gambusia will seize them by one succulent toe and eat them up one thousandth of an inch at a time. So there! International Service Although Gambusia is not so fierce as the almost legendary Piranha of the rivers in the Amazon forest basin, he does not do so badly by comparison, and it would not do to let him free, appetite and all,, among more gentle fish. In Russia, where they use him a lot against the mosquito in Siberia, they have special trains in which he is carried across country, from commune to commune, pond to pond, marsh to marsh, lake to lake. They keep him as an ally against mosquitoes in Constantinople, in Spain, and in Italy, and in all these places his services as an ally are bought only at the price of constant vigilance against his escape. Another of his disadvantages is the rate as which he (we mean she) breeds, Marie Stopes would faint if she knew. Thirty are born at a time, alive and needing to be fed, and in two months each female of the thirty is ready to produce thirty more. At that rate, in six months-but the Puzzle Editor is still working on it. At all events, we are pleased to inform all residents in the vicinity of Our Pond that we have done our best for them. If they continue to be worried by mosquitoes, then all we can say is that the Gambusia must be too well fed on the M.P.’s who fall in o’nights, or on the small boys who paddle by day.