THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. . 281 



report to the committee that a large appropriation be granted by the Leg- 

 islature for immediate use. The Legislature cut down the estimates for 

 the appropriation, and granted only one hundred thousand dollars. Thus 

 the best opportunity in the history of the work was lost. During the 

 past three seasons the meteorological and other conditions seem to have 

 been particularly favourable for the increase of the gypsy moth, and no 

 such favourable opportunity for its complete extermination has offered as 

 was presented in 1892. From that time until the present, although large 

 sums have been annually appropriated, aggregating altogether more than 

 half a million dollars, each appropriation has been far less in amount than 

 the immediate necessities of the work required, and each has been granted 

 so late in the season that it has been impossible to accomplish the desired 

 results. This ineffective legislation has been, no doubt, the result of an 

 organized opposition on the part of those who do not believe in the pos- 

 sibility of extermination. Considerable opposition has come from farm- 

 ers, people who are benefited, perhaps, more than any other class by the 

 policy of the .State in making appropriations for this purpose. 



Many of the worst swarms of insects have been entirely exterminated, 

 and the work has been so effectively done in most of the outer towns of 

 the infested region that the moth has been cleared from these towns so 

 far as careful inspection could determine. But during the present year, 

 the appropriation having been delayed nearly six months, the caterpillars 

 in the central towns hatched and became again somewhat generally dis- 

 tributed over the region, thus reinfesting some of the places originally 

 infested and also originating new colonies. 



Few moths have ever been observed outside the region found infested 

 in 1 89 1, except in one or two isolated localities, and all the moth colonies 

 found since 1891, outside these thirty towns, had evidently been in exist- 

 ence for several years when discovered. None have been found at a 

 distance from the infested towns. Since work was begun the present 

 year the progress made has been very encouraging. The numbers of the 

 different forms of the moth found this year have so far been much less 

 than those found in 1895. No moths have been found in the extreme 

 north-easterly towns, such as Danvers and Marblehead, and very few 

 have been found in Lynn, a city which formerly had more than twelve 

 hundred infested localities. 



Mr. Forbush expressed a desire for information concerning the death 

 of trees from defoliation by insects. 



