INSECT CONTROL 301 



reason to believe that this little ladybird would have 

 become firmly established in the land of its adoption, and 

 would have rendered the dreaded San Jose scale compara- 

 tively innocuous. 



We will not reiterate the story of the introduction and 

 spread of the gipsy and brown-tail moths in America, but 

 we may point a moral and adorn a tale by mentioning the 

 fact that the State of Massachusetts ceased its appropria- 

 tions towards the expenditure of exterminating these 

 moths from 1900 to 1905, and during these five years the 

 pests spread from a restricted area of three hundred and 

 fifty-nine square miles to an extended range of over two 

 thousand two hundred and twenty-four square miles. 

 Matters came to a head in 1904, when it was said that 

 " from Belmont to Saugus and Lynn a continuous chain of 

 woodland colonies presented a sight at once disgusting 

 and pitiful. The hungry caterpillars of both species of 

 moths swarmed everywhere; they dropped on persons, 

 carriages, cars, and automobiles, and were thus widely 

 scattered. They invaded houses, swarmed into living- and 

 sleeping-rooms, and even made homes uninhabitable. . . . 

 Real estate in the worst infested districts underwent a 

 notable depreciation in value." 



Acting on the dictum that desperate diseases require 

 desperate remedies, the American authorities set themselves 

 the gigantic task of establishing, " not one or half-a-dozen 

 of the natural enemies, but all of them, aiming at the same 

 time to avoid the introduction of hyperparasites that is, 

 those species that prey upon the true parasites of the 

 injurious forms thus, if possible, bringing about an even 

 more favourable situation for the primary parasites in 

 New England than exists in Europe." Several visits were 

 paid to various centres in Europe, from which colonies of 

 parasitised gipsy and brown-tail moths were sent to the 

 State insectary at North Saugus, Massachusetts, and from 

 them a number of beneficial insects were reared. 



