Tent Caterpillars. 561 



Methods of Combating the Forest Tent Caterpillar. 



Fortunately both the apple and the forest tent caterpillars are 

 preyed upon by many enemies, including insects, spiders, toads 

 and birds. Where the forest tent caterpillars confine their work 

 to their native haunts — the forest trees — we must depend largely 

 upon these natural enemies to hold the insect in check. That 

 these enemies are capable of doing this is evidenced by the fact 

 that this insect usually appears in alarming numbers only at long 

 intervals and its outbreaks usually last only a few years, as their 

 enemies soon reduce their numbers to the normal. We visited 

 several maple "sugar bushes " last year where the caterpillars 

 had just finished stripping the foliage from all the trees, and we 

 never saw so many parasitic foes : the little Ichneumons and 

 Tachnia flies were surprisingly numerous and bus}^ getting in 

 their deadly work on the caterpillars. Most owners of " sugar 

 bushes " will have to depend oq these little friends to check the 

 depredations of the forest tent caterpillars, because it would 

 usually be too expensive a job for an individual owner to under- 

 take to combat the pest in his sugar grove. We hope and believe 

 that the enemies of the caterpillars can be depended upon to get 

 the upper hand and control the pest in the forests and sugar 

 groves of New York in a year or two. 



Where the forest tent caterpillars are present in alarming 

 numbers in fruit or shade trees, however, the case is very 

 different, and man should take prompt measures to check their 

 ravages. In orchards the methods of gathering the egg-clusters 

 and spraying with Bordeaux and Paris green, discussed on a pre- 

 vious page, will usually control the forest tent caterpillars. 

 The presence of these caterpillars is not so readily discovered 

 because they erect no tent or ' * signboard ' ' in the tree as does 

 the apple tent caterpillar. The two kinds of caterpillars often 

 occur in the same tree. 



The control of the forest tent caterpillar on village shade trees 

 is a special problem, but not a difl&cult one, we believe. Enlist 

 the aid of the school teachers, and the school children will soon 

 become an invaluable army to help in protecting the trees. Let 

 a few public spirited citizens or the village Board offer a prize to 



