GIPSY MOTH TN CONNECTICUT. 25 



Connecticut board of agriculture kindly ai)pr()priated $2,000, to be 

 used if needed, and (iovernor Roberts and his associates assured us 

 that if after using this money at our disposal still more was needed 

 to hold the pest in check it would be forthcoming. We called upon 

 the board of agriculture for $800, and the remaining $000 has come 

 from our own insect-pest approj)riation. An attempt will be made 

 to have the State legislature, which soon convenes, set aside a few 

 thousand dollars to be u-od if needed in work against the gipsy and 

 brown-tail moths. The brown-tail moth has not yet been found in 

 Connecticut, though it must be very near its borders in Massachu- 

 setts. "We shall endeavor to exterminate the gipsy-moth colony at 

 Stonington, and this can be done if it has not spread beyond the area 

 where we have found it. The village of Stonington is on a narrow 

 point of land extending into the ocean. The infested territory ex- 

 tends from the village northward and slightly eastward; it is flanked 

 on both sides b}^ water — on the esist by the AVequetequock River and 

 on the west by an arm of the sea extending northward from Ston- 

 ington Harbor. A line from the northernmost extremity of this salt 

 water extending easterly to Wequetequock River cuts the mainland 

 some distance north of where any caterpillars or e^yg masses have 

 been found, although considerable scouting has been done in this 

 section and many of the trees were banded in caterpillar time. 



Two natural enemies of the gipsy moth have been observed in 

 Connecticut. The ''caterpillar hunter" or ''searcher" {CaJosoma 

 scrutator Fab.) was quite connnon under the bands, and one of these 

 in captivity devoured gipsy moth caterpillars with avidity. Out 

 of the ten thousand or more caterpillars gathej-ed and destroyed four 

 diseased ones were observed. These shriveled and finally died, as 

 if attacked by some bacterial disease. While in ^Massachusetts the 

 last week in June I observed the same or a similar disease which 

 killed many caterpillars, though of course only a small proportion. 

 Dr. G. E. Stone, botanist of the Massachusetts experiment station 

 at Amherst, was investigating the matter, and I sent him two of the 

 diseased caterpillars from Stonington. At that time he was not 

 ready to report on the luiture of the disease, but stated that a number 

 of diti'erent organisms had been isolated from the diseased caterpillars. 



Just how the pest reached Stonington may perhaps never be 

 known, but there is much speculation regarding it. Eggs or pupa^ 

 may have been brought on packing boxes to the V(>lvet mill or upon 

 freight cars left upon the s[)ur track. Certainly the worst infesta- 

 tion was near the velvet mill and the railroad, and I feel that it nuist 

 have reached Stonington on steam cars via the New York. Xew 

 Haven and Hartford Railroad. Some think that it may have Ix^en 

 a direct importation from Europe, as Germans live in the locality, 

 Avork in the mill, and occasionallv travel back and forth. 



