564 



INSECT PESTS OF FARM, GARDEN AND ORCHARD 



quently does serious injury there by defoliating large areas of 

 forest and more frequent!}' 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 1S68 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. 416. Gipsy moth caterpillars natural size. (After W. E. Britton.) 



pest throughout this and neighboring towns that the State of Massa- 

 chusetts 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 oime the moth 



