(iVPSV AM) BROWN-TAIL MOTHS. [Jan. 



successful end, will continue the honor of sustaining you generously 

 in your efforts. It will have merited, then, the gratitude of humanity, 

 which will owe to your country an important part of its well-being. 



In a recent very extended article on the " Utilization of the 

 Parasitic and Predaceous Insects in the Struggle against In- 

 sects Injurious to Agriculture," published in the Annals of the 

 National Agronomical Institute of France, second series, vol- 

 ume VI., 1907, pages 282-354, Dr. Paul Marchal discusses in a 

 most competent way all of the attempts that have been made in 

 tlic past along this line, as far as literature has described these 

 efforts. He has given us an admirable summary of the whole 

 work with parasites. He devotes much space to the gypsy moth 

 parasite undertakings, and in stating his conclusions says : - 



And to what practical results will all this work lead us? It is still 

 dillicult to state in a decisive way the answer to this question. The ex- 

 periments have, however, been carried on under the very best conditions 

 to bring success to the enterprise; and it was impossible to confide the 

 work to a savant of higher scientific standing than the eminent director 

 of the Bureau of Entomology at Washington. Given the great number 

 of parasites imported, the abundance of food which they find at their 

 disposition, a climate analogous to that of Europe, it does not appear 

 doubtful that many of the species will become acclimatized; and once 

 acclimatized they cannot fail to strongly influence the balance of nature 

 to the prejudice of the injurious species. 



The time necessary for this movement of the seesaw may be long, and 

 it does not seem that we can have appreciable results before four or five 

 years; but what matter, in any case, since we are trying to obtain a 

 result which is of indefinite duration, and which will dispense with the 

 expensive process of destruction by insecticides and by hand, and which 

 will mark the end of a public calamity menacing the trees of the whole 

 Tinted States? 



REPORT OF DR. JAMES FLETCHER, 



DOMINION ENTOMOLOGIST, OTTAWA, ONT. 



CENTRAL EXPERIMENTAL FAKM, 

 OTTAWA, ONT., CANADA, June 27, 1907. 



A. II. KIHKI.AKD, Esq., tiuiH'fintt ,i<l, nt for Suppressing the Gypsy and 

 Brown- tail Mntlix. Boston, Mass., U. S. 



DEAR Sn::- -I have the honor to report that in response to your 

 invitation I had, on June L* 1 and '_'."> last, the pleasure of inspecting some 

 of the work which has been done under the snperintendency of Dr. L. 

 0. Howard and yourself in Massachusetts in importing and establishing 

 parasites, with the object of controlling the brown-tail and gypsy 



