41 



lish cocksfoot and ryegrass, which had been put in gradually as the dense 

 vine scrub was felled and burnt off, is now a barren desert, and nine fami- 

 lies out of every ten which were renting properties have been compelled to 

 leave the district and take up other lands. This is through the grubs 

 having eaten the grass out by the roots. Plowing proved to be useless, as 

 the grubs ate out the grass just the same. While there recently I was in- 

 formed that it took three years from the time the grubs were first seen 

 until to-day to accomplish this complete devastation; in other words, 

 three years ago the grubs began work hi that beautiful country of green 

 mountains and running streams. 



The birds had all been ruthlessly shot and destroyed in that district, and 

 I was amazed at the absence of bird life. The two sub-districts I have 

 mentioned have an area of about 30 square miles, and form a tableland 

 about 1200 feet above sea level. * 



In the summer of 1914 a severe outbreak of the army worm 

 (Leucania unipuncta) occurred in southeastern Massachusetts. 

 On August 1, accompanied by Mr. Walt McMahon, I went to 

 Martha's Vineyard and visited a farm at North Tisbury. Army 

 worms were present there in enormous numbers. Their season 

 appeared to be about over and their destructiveness seemed to 

 have just passed its height. On fields where the corn had stood 

 more than waist high the crop had been eaten down to the 

 ground, leaving no visible evidence that corn had grown there. 

 In other fields there still was a little corn left standing. Nearly 

 all the turf in the grass fields appeared dead and brown. Here 

 trenches had been plowed about the fields to protect them. 

 Large quantities of poisoned bran had been scattered and had 

 destroyed some of the worms, as we saw the remains of it and 

 many dead caterpillars. It was reported that these caterpillars 

 had lain over a foot deep in some of the trenches, but these 

 had been plowed under. Here we saw almost no birds; the 

 only small bird noted was one red-winged blackbird. A farmer 

 on the ground stated his belief that the poisoned bran had 

 killed the birds, or that they had been killed by eating poisoned 

 army worms. It was said that some turkeys also had been 

 poisoned on another farm. 



* Oldys, Henry: Current Items of Interest, Audubon Society of the District of Columbia, 

 No. 3, April 15, 1909. 



