iat 
that this pest was introduced on this stock, and, escaping into near-by 
pear orchards, had gained considerable local spread before it was 
noticed. 
A general account of this insect has been published by the gypsy 
moth committee, and it has lately been made the subject of a special 
volume by Prof. Charles H. Fernald, of Amherst. assisted by Mr. 
A. H. Kirkland. The larvee of the brown-tail moth feed by prefer- 
ence on the foliage of fruit trees, especially pear and apple. The 
chief damage, therefore, in this direction has been in orchards or on 
fruit trees grown in yards. It has, however, a wide range of food 
plants, and will subsist on many forest trees, although notable damage 
or forest stripping has not been characteristic of it. The habits of the 
insect render it much more readily controlled than the gypsy moth. 
The winter is passed in the half-grown larval stage in small but con- 
spicuous webs attached to the terminal twigs. The chief means of 
control is the collection in the winter of these webs and burning them, 
and, if this be done with any degree of thoroughness, trouble from 
the brown-tail moth may be very largely overcome. 
Unlike the gypsy moth, the female of the brown-tail moth is a 
strong flyer, and hence the distribution of this insect has been very 
rapid. It has now overrun southern New Hampshire and south- 
western Maine, as well as the northeastern counties of Massachusetts, 
and will undoubtedly extend its range widely in North America in a 
comparatively few years. There is no means of preventing such ulti- 
mate spread, but prompt effort at control will much retard its prog- 
ress. During July, 1904, while the writer was conducting his inves- 
tigations about Boston, the moths of this insect were emerging in great 
numbers, and were attracted in their nocturnal flight to electric and 
other hghts. It was no uncommon sight to see electric-light poles 
whitened by hundreds of these snowy white moths, and thousands 
were killed about the electric hghts. Some benefit could undoubtedly 
be obtained by a trap connected to electric lights which would destroy 
more of the moths than the lights do themselves. 
During the time when the flight of these moths was at its height 
enormous numbers of them were brought by favoring winds into the 
heart of Boston, causing considerable interest and excitement in 
Newspaper Row, the swarm having centered there, and resulted in a 
number of accounts, illustrated by photographs locally taken, in the 
daily papers of the following morning. 
The distribution of the brown-tail moth, as already indicated, has 
been in a northerly direction. South of Boston it is known to occur 
in the double tier of towns bordering Massachusetts Bay as far as 
Scituate. The entire northeastern portion of Massachusetts was 
invaded as early as 1899. By 1902 the invasion had extended west- 
ward to Brockton, Hudson, and Stow, in Massachusetts. The moth 
