66 GYPSY AND BROWN-TAIL MOTHS. [Jan. 



Melrose Highlands. Superintendent Kirkland asked him to 

 give us an expression of his opinion in regard to the methods 

 used in carrying on the work, and also on the methods used in 

 importing and breeding parasites, and he submitted to us the 

 following report : 



NEW YORK, July 20, 1908. 

 To Mr. A. H. KIRKLAND. 



I made a visit to your laboratory at Melrose Highlands, where the 

 parasites of Lymantria 1 and Euproctis 1 received from Europe and 

 Japan are developed. I have visited a large part of the surroundings 

 of Boston where the war against these insects is carried on by artificial 

 methods, and also the places where they have been allowed to spend 

 all their activity. I have read the three annual reports of the work 

 accomplished in 1905, 1906 and 1907, as you desired my full and frank 

 opinion about the work which is being done under your direction, and 

 also my opinion as to what seems likely to occur in the future, and I 

 herewith make it with the greatest pleasure. I will begin by saying 

 that the two insects mentioned above are a veritable pest of much 

 importance on trees of North America, and that if left unmolested 

 they will finally occupy almost all the temperate regions of North 

 America, causing incalculable damage. Lymantria and Euproctis are 

 insects introduced from Europe without their parasites; therefore here 

 we do not find the natural check which in Europe in the case of many 

 insects usually destroys them in such quantities that they are reduced 

 to such small numbers as to be unnoticed. It is possible in Europe in 

 some years also to have a serious enemy in special climatic conditions, 

 which favor the development of infectious diseases caused by different 

 bacteria and fungi; but these conditions are not under control, and 

 naturally do not occur with much frequency, and, although they are 

 of economic value, yet they cannot be relied upon to the extent of 

 giving up artificial suppression. Nevertheless, I believe that it would 

 be useful to have competent persons study the maladies to which 

 Lymantria and Euproctis are subject in Europe and elsewhere, 

 although only such persons as are competent to identify the same 

 should be employed in the work. 



The spirit manifested by the Congress of Massachusetts at the be- 

 olnning of the work was excellent and extremely patriotic, inasmuch 



i 



as they contemplated the complete extermination of Lymantria and 

 Euproctis in America; but no entomologist of the present or of the 

 future I believe will be able by any means to attain to complete ex- 

 termination of an insect so scattered through woodlands and on various 

 kinds of vegetation. Will it be possible in such a case to attain the 

 complete suppression, and, if that is not possible, to fight these insects 



1 Generic names of the gypsy moth and the browu-tail moth. 



