Jl6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL.84 



into the food and into the beds. They were killed in countless num- 

 bers by the inhabitants, who swept them up into piles, poured kero- 

 sene over them and set them on fire. Thousands upon thousands were 

 crushed under the feet of pedestrians, and a pungent and filthy stench 

 arose from their decaying bodies. The numbers were so great that 

 in the still, summer nights the sound of their feeding could plainly 

 be heard, while the pattering of their excreniental pellets on the 

 ground sounded like rain. Valuable fruit and shade trees were killed 

 in numbers by their work, and the value of real estate was very con- 

 siderably reduced. So great was the nuisance that it was impossible, 

 for example, to hang clothes upon the garden clothesline, as they 

 would become covered with the caterpillars and stained with their 

 excrement. Persons walking along the streets would become covered 

 with caterpillars spinning down from the trees. To read the testi- 

 mony of the older inhabitants of the town, which was collected and 

 published by a committee, reminds one vividly of one of the plagues 

 of Egypt as described in the Bible. 



During all this time the Medford people had been under the impres- 

 sion that the insect which they were fighting in their gardens was a 

 native species, and they knew it simply as " the caterpillar " or " the 

 army worm " ; but in June, 1889, when the plague was at its height, 

 specimens were sent to the Agricultural Experiment Station at Am- 

 herst, and were identified by Mrs. C. H. Fernald as the famous gipsy 

 moth of Europe. 



A town meeting was immediately called in Medford, and work 

 against the insect was begun. The next year a State appropriation was 

 made, and very active and intelligent investigations were carried on 

 under continually increasing appropriations until 1901 when, unfor- 

 tunately, just as the possible extermination of the species appeared 

 to be in sight, the appropriations were stopped and were not renewed 

 for four years. During these four years the insect increased and 

 spread from an area of about 400 square miles to one of 4,000 

 square miles. 



In 1905 the Federal Government was called in, and since that time 

 has made large appropriations annually. 



When the fight was rebegun in 1905 it was realized that the oppor- 

 tunity for extermination was gone, and that all eflforts should be 

 based upon the ideas of control and prevention of spread. It is a 

 pity that the State appropriations were interrupted in 1901. It is a 

 pity that the Federal Government did not take hold at the start and 

 make every efifort to exterminate the pest while it was still confined 

 to the vicinity of Medford. But the government did not do things of 



