INSECTS INJURIOUS TO ORCHARD FRUITS 



493 



quently does serious injury there by defoliating large areas of 

 forest and more ferquently fruit and shade trees, but its ravages 

 cease in two or three seasons, not to occur again for several years, 

 like those of many of our native insects, such as the forest tent 

 caterpillar and tussock moth. In 1868 the insect was brought 

 to this country by Professor Leopold Trouvelot at Medford, Mass., 

 in his experiments in silk producing. Escaping from him into the 

 neighboring woodland, the insect increased gradually for several 

 years before being noticed, but in 1890 had become such a serious 



FIG. 418. Gipsy moth caterpillars natural size. (After W. E. Britton.) 



pest throughout this and neighboring towns that the State of 

 Massachusetts commenced the arduous task of its extermination. 

 At this time the insect occurred in some twenty towns. For the 

 next ten years it was successfully combated by the Massachusetts 

 authorities, and in 1898 it had spread to but three towns not 

 infested in 1890 and in many places it had apparently been exter- 

 minated. So slight was the injury that legislative appropriations 

 were discontinued for four years, during which time the moth 

 spread over four times the area previously occupied and became 

 so abundant that State action was again necessary. From 1905 

 to 1910 it spread throughout eastern Massachusetts and southern 

 New Hampshire and Maine, and was found in two or three locaL 



