1916 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 149 



ground li\L'd over with only a small winterkill, having been protected from the 

 extreine cold by the deep snow. 



The questions that arose from this were ; The proportion of nests that dropped 

 from the trees, when they dropped, and whether the larva which lived over in tlie 

 dropped nests would reach the trees from which they fell. We have not by any 

 means finished these lines of enquiry, but we have one year's work on each, which 

 shows up their importance. 



On November 1914-15 we tagged a number of nests in each of two orchards, 

 and in one we got 10 per cent, dropped during the winter, and in the other ::?5 per 

 cent. 



in regard to the time that the greatest drop takes place the heavy gale of Sept. 

 26, 27, 28, 1915, loosened a great quantity of nests, but the greatest drop appears 

 to take place in November and December, soon after the leaves fall, and continues 

 to a certain extent all winter. The heavy gales break down the nests and cause 

 them to start swinging, but do not actually blow as many off the trees as one would 

 expect, but the lighter winds following, constantly twisting the nests about, gradu- 

 ally wear the thread off and cause the drop to be spread quite evenly over the whole 

 season. 



In regard to the young larvas in the dropped nests finding the trees, we found, 

 from nests placed equidistant from four trees in an orchard planted 35 by 35 

 feet, that 11 per cent, of the larvae contained in the nests found the trees and 

 ascended to a tanglefoot t^and placed to catch them. The spring weather influences 

 the movements of the young larv« to a very great extent. In bright weather the 

 larvae will travel over the ground due south, toward the sun ; in cloudy weather, such 

 as we had when the larvae were emerging in 1915, they will travel in any direction. 



These preliminary investigations would indicate the importance of removing as 

 many nests as possible before the nests begin- to drop from the trees. These vfews 

 are supported in practice by the ease with which the Brown-tails are controlled in 

 districts where the drop is light, as compared with districts where the drop is 

 heavy. 



We now start our inspectors on November 1. when the loaves are about 90 per 

 cent, off the unsprayed orchards, but have scarcely started to come off 

 the sprayed orchards. They work the uns])rayed orchards in the most 

 heavily infested territory first, trying to get just as many nests as possible off the 

 trees as quickly as possible, returning later to work every tree and bush in the dis- 

 trfct, and, if they have time, to return a third time to go over the trees again. 

 As light and moisture conditions often prevent the best work being done in many 

 orchards, a second thorough inspection is found to be of value in the most heavily 

 infested localities. 



Fall Picking of the Nests. 



We liave found that a large proportion of the winter nests can be gathered bv 

 the pickers when picking the apples in September and October, the cluster of brown 

 skeletonized leaves that tlie larva^ feed on when forming the winter nest showing up 

 for a foot around the nest against the dark green of the tree. At the beginninii of 

 the season we published notes in the papers requesting growers to have their pickers 

 look for these clusters of leaves and destroy the nests when found. We have already 

 had reports of a large number of nests collected and destroyed this season by the 

 pickers. 



