PROCEEDINGS, 1915. 51 



veloping which will prefer birch or thorn or amelanchier to apple and 

 pear. Our present Brown-tail problem therefore is in controlling 



them in actual orchard property and in woodland and roadside trees near 

 orchard trees. 



Control of the Brown-tail. 



During the first two years after its discovery in Nova Scotia a sys- 

 tem of paying bounties to the school children for nests collected was car- 

 ried out. During the two following years the Province furnished inspec- 

 tors who, working under Mr. H. G. Payne, Mr. G. H. Vroom and Prof. 

 Smith, collected the winter webs. During the winter and spring in 1910 

 Dr. C. Gordon Hewitt, the Dominion Entomologist succeeded in con- 

 vincing the authorities at Ottawa that the Brown-tail moth was a national, 

 rather than a local menace, and succeeded in securing means of co-opera- 

 ting with the Province in its control. Since 1910 a joint force of inspectors, 

 one-half of whom are furnished by the Dominion and one-half by the Pro- 

 vince, has scouted the Province during the winter months and collected 

 and destroyed the webs of the Brown-tail moth. At the present time a 

 force of ten inspectors is employed from November 1st to May 1st, who 

 examine every fruit tree, and as many wild and shade trees as possible, in 

 the Counties of Shelburne, Yarmouth, Digby, Annapolis, Kings and 

 Hants and scout Cumberland, Queens, Lunenburg and Halifax. A por- 

 tion of this territory is examined twice, and the most heavily infested three 

 times. By studying carefully the characteristics of these winter nests we 

 have been able to increase the efficiency of the work of the inspectors con- 

 siderably, for instance, we formerly started our inspection work later in 

 the season about Jan. 1st. Then we found that a large number of nests 

 were very loosely attached to the trees, some dropped off when touched 

 with the pole and in many cases we found bits of web from which the 

 nests had already dropped remaining on the trees. Last winter we con- 

 ducted some preliminary experiments to determine the actual danger of 

 infestations, being continued from these fallen nests. We found the actu- 

 al number falling from the trees during the whole winter in one experi- 

 ment to be 25 per cent., in another which was accidentally disturbed, so 

 not accurate, somewhat less. In another experiment we placed 50 Brown- 

 tail nests in a row between two standard rows of apple trees, in November 

 1914 and then tanglefooted the orchard in April 1915 so as to catch all of the 

 Brown-tails ascending the trees. We found that 10.14 per cent, of the 

 total Brown-tails contained in the nests, lived over on the ground and 

 climbed up the trees in the spring. We counted them as they were caught 

 under the tanglefoot bands. I may say here that the winter-kill in nests 

 exposed on the ground is very small, in extreme low temperatures often 

 less than in nests exposed in the air. We have also found that Brown- 

 tails will not survive on ordinary ground herbage, although they will eat 

 it to a certain extent at first, and it will sustain a number of them until 



