Report of the State Entomologist 303 



Eds. Country Gentleman. — My attention has been called to' the 

 following notice in the New York World of a recent issue, with the 

 suggestion that an expression of my opinion upon it might be of 

 interest : 



[^From the New York WorldJ] 



"Massachusetts farmers are filled with alarm over the reported 

 ravages of a newly found insect pest which an Amherst College " bug 

 sharp " says may become widespread through the country, and may 

 cause more havoc than the celebrated Colorado potato beetle. This is 

 the gypsy moth, known to entomologists as the Ocneria dixpar. At 

 present it is confined to the neighborhood of Medford, where it caused 

 so much damage that Gov. Brackett, in his message the other day, saw 

 fit to call the attention of agriculturists to the pest, and recommended 

 its speedy extermination. 



•' The moth was introduced here twenty years ago by Dr. L. Trouvelot, 

 who saw the eggs at the Paris Exposition, and put a few in his vest 

 pocket. One day the little bunch of eggs was blown out of bis window 

 in Medford, and never heard from until last fall, when millions of the 

 gypsy moths attacked shade and fruit trees and shrubbery, leaving 

 nothing save stalks and twigs behind. The area thus devastated was 

 an ellipse a mile and a half long, and half a mile wide. 



"Prof. Fernald of the Amherst Agricultural College, says the moth 

 is a terrible pest. The Harvard authority on bugs and millers, Pro- 

 fessor Hagen, on the other hand, says his Amherst contemporary doesn't 

 know what he is talking about. The Harvard expert asserts that the 

 gypsy moth is not alarmingly destructive. 



" ' In my opinion,' says he, ' this talk about state aid, this ordering 

 out the militia to shoot caterpillars, as it were, iw entii-ely unnecessary. 

 Let every man kill his own caterpillars.' The professor has some of 

 them always on tap in his study." 



The facts of the introduction into Medford, Mass., about twenty 

 years ago of the gypsy moth, Ocneria dispar, and its subsequent multi- 

 plication and extension are, I believe, correctly given, but I doubt 

 if, even in the limited area to which it is apparently confined, of 

 " the trees and shrubbery " there were only left " the twigs and stalks." 

 Nor do I believe that there is any danger, even if it shall become wide- 

 spread, of its causing havoc even aj^proximating to that of the Colorado 

 potato beetle. I do not see any just cause for alarm on the part of 

 farmers or others, over the introduction of this new pest. The cater- 

 pillar is "a general feeder" — represented as feeding, in Europe, "on 

 every species of fruit and forest tree " (probably not absolutely true). 

 But the general feeders, as a rule, are far less to be feared than those 

 that concentrate their attack on a particular food-plant. This is also 

 rather a local species. It is rarely injurious in England, and only 

 occasionally so on the continent. It seems to prefer oak and other 

 forest trees to fruit trees. Thus Professor Westwood has stated: "It 



