66 INSECTS AND MAN 



could be plainly heard, while the pattering of their excre- 

 mental pellets on the ground sounded like a shower of 

 rain. ... So great was the nuisance that it was impossible, 

 for example, to hang clothes upon the garden clothes-line, 

 as they would become covered with caterpillars and stained 

 with their excrement. Persons walking along the streets 

 would become covered with caterpillars spinning down from 

 the trees. To read the testimony of the older inhabitants 

 of the town . . . reminds one vividly of one of the biblical 

 plagues of Egypt." 



At this time the insect was thought to be a native 

 American species, but Mrs Fernald recognised the cater- 

 pillars from a description in a European book, and 

 announced that the insect was none other than the noxious 

 gipsy moth. During the ensuing ten years every effort 

 was made to eradicate the pest, and a sum of $1,175,000 

 was spent in the attempt. During these years the affliction 

 remained a local one, and legislators, in districts where the 

 moth had never been encountered, combined successfully 

 to put a stop to further expenditure. This the greatest 

 tragedy of all in the history of the gipsy moth in America 

 saved the situation as far as the insects were concerned, 

 for, unharassed by man, and free from attacks by the 

 parasites and predatory insects which had kept them in 

 check in Europe, the moths had, by 1906, multiplied and 

 spread to such an alarming extent that $75,000 was voted 

 at once, and $225,000 in 1907, in "frantic attempts to 

 overcome the results of those five years of rash idleness." 

 What was formerly a local pest had now spread throughout 

 New England, and to-day the expenditure of millions of 

 dollars and vast amounts of time and energy are rewarded, 

 solely, by the belief that the advance of the pest has been 

 checked, and that the infestation of new territory has 

 become preventable. 



It has been mentioned that the gipsy moth caterpillars 

 are inveterate enemies of trees, and they show a partiality 



