PROCEEDINGS, 1915. 49 



The total area infested at the present time includes a portion of Hants 

 County, Kings, Annapolis, Digby and Yarmouth, and one nest found in 

 1914-15 in Shelburne County. So the spread of the insect since its first 

 discovery in Nova Scotia has not been great, the increase having come 

 from gradual increase within the originally infested area in the districts 

 where apple orchards are most numerous and the least spraying done, i.e. 

 Western Annapolis County, and from new infestations from the New 

 England Coast into Yarmouth and Western Digby Counties. 



The spread of Brown-tails in the Province has on the whole been 

 from west to east following the prevailing wind, the main, and in fact the 

 only spread worth considering being from the flying adults. Town pro- 

 perty is as a rule infested before country property showing that the lights 

 of the towns have some effect in attracting the flying female moths. The 

 small valleys opening on the Annapolis Valley, particularly those on the 

 south, such as Bear River, Deep Brook, Smith's Cove, Clementsport, 

 Lequille, Mochelle, Round Hill and Nictaux, have almost invariably, 

 "been infested before the intervening exposed territory becomes infested 

 showing that the distribution is to a great extent involuntary on the part 

 of the flying moths. The moths evidently being caught up by the wind 

 when flying at night and swept along until the wind blowing across the 

 small valley at right angles an eddy is formed and the flying moths alight. 

 As a rule the first infestations are found on the west side of these small 

 valleys. That the distribution is to a great extent involuntary is also 

 shown up in the difference in control in Yarmouth and Western Digby 

 and in Western Annapolis County. In Western Annapolis orchards are 

 so numerous and join each other so closely that if a moth blows out of 

 one orchard the chances are it will blow into another, very little spraying 

 is done and as a result Western Annapolis is our very hardest territory 

 to work. In Yarmouth and Western Digby the orchards are as a rule 

 small and separated by strips of woodland or open fields. In this ter- 

 ritory we find it quite easy to control Brown-tails and cause large de- 

 creases or even exterminate them in many cases where work of the same 

 character would give us increases in the unsprayed portion of the valley. 

 Practically no spraying is done in Digby and Yarmouth, so the only way 

 we can explain the ease with which we control them in that territory is 

 that a portion of the flying moths are blown into the woodland and perish 

 there on account of not finding suitable food plants. 



Food Plants. 



In bringing up the Brown-tail moth question we are very often asked 

 the question, What will it do to the forests when it gets established there? 

 The only answer we can make definitely is the following list showing the 



