April, '10] SANDERSON : NEW HAMPSHIRE INSECTS 211 



infested area have now been stripped of their foliage two years. 

 Last year most of them leaved out in the fall but this year I am 

 informed that many of them have failed to leaf out again. Undoubt- 

 edly many have already been killed and should they be stripped again 

 immense areas of hard wood will undoubtedly be killed. Should this 

 occur it would be the most serious injury to forest trees by a leaf 

 eating caterpillar of which we know in this country. So far no para- 

 sites have been observed which are doing very effective work against 

 the pest but the ground beetles, particularly Calosoma frigida, were 

 present in large numbers and undoubtedly did very effective work 

 both as larvae and adults. The striped maple worm {Anisota ruhi- 

 cunda) and the spiny oak caterpillar (Anisota stigma) were again 

 abundant on maple and oak over the same territory affected by the 

 antlered maple worm. 



For the last tw^o years the elm leaf beetle (GalernceUa luteola) has 

 been becoming more abundant in the cities in the southeastern part of 

 the state. The present year many of the trees in Newmarket, Exeter, 

 Dover, Manchester and Nashua were entirely stripped of their foliage 

 where they had not been sprayed. Another season effective work will 

 undoubtedly be done against the pest by spraying. The unusual 

 prevalence of this insect so far north can only be accounted for by 

 our exceptionally dry summers and the rather open winters of the 

 last two years. It is beyond its northern range as previously known 

 to us and we shall expect to see it disappear and only break out under 

 similar climatic conditions in the future. It may be possible, how- 

 ever, as Dr. H. T. Fernald has suggested, that it, as well as some other 

 insects, will adapt themselves to a more northern habitat. 



The brown-tail moth (Euproctis chrysorrhcea) is increasingly abun- 

 dant in the more recently infested territory but altho we have made 

 no careful survey of its spread, it seems to be spreading but very 

 slowly toward the Connecticut Valley and to have reached its northern 

 limit as we have previously predicted. Practically no serious injury 

 is done by the insect in most of the territory north of Lake Winnipe- 

 saukee. In the worst infested region, as for instance in Durham, 

 over 95 per cent of the caterpillars were killed off by a fungous 

 disease altho there was hardly a normal rainfall. "With normal rain- 

 fall in the spring and late summer the pest will undoubtedly be greatly 

 reduced in numbers in the future. Spraying with arsenate of lead to 

 destroy the young caterpillars during the first two weeks in August 

 has been found exceedingly effective and cheap for both apple and 

 shade trees, both in our own work and in that of our fruit growers. 



The gipsy moth (Porthetna dispar) continues to spread and we 



