REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



United States Department of Agriculture, 



Bureau of Entomology, 

 Washington, D. C, August 2^ 1916. 

 Sir: I submit herewith a report of the work of the Bureau of 

 Entomology for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1916. 



L. O. Howard, 



Entomologist and Chief of Bureau. 

 Hon. D. F. Houston, 



Secretary of Agriculture. 



WORK ON THE GIPSY MOTH AND BROWN-TAIL MOTH. 



The work on the gipsy and brown-tail moths was continued as 

 formerly under the direction of Mr. A. F. Burgess. Many improve- 

 ments in methods have been made as the result of experiments which 

 have been conducted. A large number of parasites have been colon- 

 ized in areas where they were not known to have occurred previously, 

 and the results of the work on the entire project have been very 

 satisfactory. 



States relations and cooperation. — Cooperation with the officials 

 charged with moth work in the various States infested has been main- 

 tained throughout the year with good results. This cooperative work 

 has prevented duplication of effort and has enabled each of the States 

 and the bureau to accomplish much more work than would otherwise 

 have been done. Numerous conferences have been held, and more 

 uniform methods have resulted from these meetings. 



Progress of the gipsy-moth work in New England. — Scouting 

 work has been carried on in the towns along and just outside the 

 infested border. Two hundred and fourteen towns in all have been 

 carefully examined during the year. Over 12,000 miles of roadways 

 and 24,000 acres of woodland have been examined. The heavy snows 

 of last winter, however, rather seriously hampered work of this kind. 



In the woodlands the high elevations have been most carefully 

 searched, as from these places the insect is most likely to be spread. 

 The result of the scouting has been that the gipsy moth has been 

 found in 10 towns in New Hampshire, 2 in Vermont, 2 in Massachu- 

 setts, and 1 in Connecticut where it was not known to exist pre- 

 viously. On the other hand, in 2 towns in New Hampshire, 2 in 



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