196 Forty-second Report on the State Museum. [54] 



In former years, they were found annually in great abundance at 

 Center, N. Y. This locality was their metropolis until within a few 

 years past, since which time the fires that have repeatedly swept 

 over it have banished the superabundance of insect life that for so 

 long- a time made it perhaps the most noted insect hunting-ground of 

 the northern United States. In the more favorable years for its mul- 

 tiplication, it abounded so excessively that all of the smaller oaks 

 which were so numerous there, occurring in extended areas to the 

 exclusion of other shrubs or trees, were, during the month of August, 

 as effectually defoliated as if they had been swept by fire. 



Dr. James Eights, a distinguished naturalist, for many years a resi- 

 dent of Albany, has informed me that on one occasion he observed on 

 the line of the railroad between Albany and Schenectady, a species of 

 caterpillar so exceedingly abundant on and about the railroad track, 

 that the numbers crushed by the passage of the trains caused the slip- 

 ping of the wheels of the engines to such an extent as to necessitate the 

 sanding of the rails before the train could proceed. A notice of the 

 interesting incident was communicated by him to one of the journals 

 of the day, in which some account of the caterpillar was given. 

 Although, from the number of years that had elapsed since the event 

 he was not able to indicate positively the species, he believed it to 

 have been A. senatoria, and the locality of its occurrence, in the vicinity 

 of Center. 



Mr. F. Clarkson has recorded (loc. cit.) a remarkable prevalence of 

 the caterpillar at Livingston, Columbia county, N. Y., in the year 1882. 

 It appeared in the latter part of June, and before the middle of 

 August the larvae had consumed all the leaves of the young oaks, and 

 had visited many of the older trees standing in lawns and on the bor- 

 ders of forests. 



Elsewhere than in New York, it has been reported as fearfully 

 numerous along the Michigan Central railroad. " For three years the 

 oaks near Kalamazoo have been entirely denuded of their leaves, and 

 nearly all the trees first attacked have died." {Report of the Commis- 

 sioner of Agriculture for 1869, p. 536.) 



At New Bloomfield, Pennsylvania, in 1882, according to Prof. Clay- 

 pole {loc. cit.), great ravages were wrought by it in the forests. He 

 states : " I have seen hillsides that looked as if fire had passed over 

 them, in consequence of the destruction of the foliage by millions of 

 the species. In the woods they could be found crawling over almost 

 every square foot of ground, and lying dead by dozens in every pool 

 of water. The sound of their falling frass was like a slight shower 

 of rain. Farmers tell me that they had never known them so abun- 

 dant before within their recollection." 



