19 



DISTKIBUTION. 



Tlie Gipsy-moth is abundant in nearly all parts of Europe, 

 Northern and Western Asia, and it even extends as far as Japan. 



In this country it occurs only in Medford, Mass., and so far as I 

 could learn at the time of my first visit to that place, it occupied an 

 area in the form of an ellipse about a mile and a half long by half a 

 mile wide. 



This represents the territory where the outbreak occurred and 

 where the insects were very abundant; but, without doubt, they are 

 distributed in smaller quantities outside of this ellipse, but how far 

 it is now impossible to tell. 



FOOD PLANTS. 



This insect was reported as feeding upon the leaves of apple, 

 cherry, quince, elm, linden, maple, balm of Gilead, birch, oak, willow, 

 wisteria, Norw^ay spruce and corn. 



The food plants given in Europe are apple, pear, plum, cherry, 

 quince, apricot, lime, pomegranate, linden, elm, biich, beech, oak. 

 po|)lar, willow, hornbeam, ash, hazfl-nut, larch, fir, azalea, mvrtle, 

 rose, cabbage and many others. Curtis, in his British Entomology, 

 states that they are sometimes very destructive in gardens. Prof. 

 W. P. Brooks reported this insect as very abundant in Sapporo, 

 Japan, in 1883, and gave strawberry as a food plant in addition to 

 those mentioned above. 



DANGKR OF SPREADING. 



' The fact that this insect has now been in this country for the last 

 twenty years, and has not only held its own. but has multiplied to 

 such an extent as to cause the entire destruction of the fruit crop 

 and also to defoliate the shade trees in the infested region, is suffi- 

 cient cause for alarm. ' ' The citizens of Medford are immediately 

 interested, but the entire Commonwealth and country are threatened 

 with one of the worst insect pests of all P^irope. In 1817, the cork- 

 oaks of Southern France suffered severely from the attacks of this 

 insect. One of the papers of that time stated that the beautiful 

 cork-oaks which extended from Barbaste to the city of Podenas wei-e 

 nearly destroyed by the caterpillars of the Gipsy-moth. After having 

 devoured the leaves and young acorns, they attacked the fields of 

 corn and millet, and al^o the grasslands and fruit trees. 



In 1878, the plane trees of the public promenades of Lyons were 

 nearly ruined by this same insect. Only last summer I saw the 

 moths in immense numbers on the trees in the Zoological gardens of 

 Berlin, where the caterpillars had done great injury ; and the European 

 works on Entomology abound with instances of the destructiveness 

 of this insect. When we consider its long list of food plants, we can 

 see how injurious this insect may become if allowed to spread over 

 the country, and become establi«hed. 



