No. 4.] INSECTS AND BIRDS. 181 



REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON GYPSY MOTH, INSECTS 

 AND BIRDS. 



To the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture. 



As in past years, your committee lias kept as closely as 

 possible in touch with the operations in connection with 

 suppressing the gypsy and brown-tail moths, and has made 

 visits of inspection to the sections where the most vigorous 

 campaign is being waged. The scouting operations which 

 have been carried on by Superintendent Kirkland since 

 June, 1905, show that the gypsy moth is even more widely 

 spread in the State than was expected at the beginning of the 

 resumption of the work. The infested area embraces a large 

 part of Barnstable County, all of Plymouth County and prac- 

 tically all of Norfolk and Middlesex counties. The most 

 westerly. infestations are those at Worcester and Lunenburg. 

 The badly infested district still remains east of the line drawn 

 from Quincy to Newton, northerly to Waltham and thence 

 diagonally northeast to Newburyport. 



In the central very badly infested district much progress 

 has been made in suppressing the moth. In Medford and 

 Maiden, which for many years have been considered the most 

 generally infested localities, such thorough work has been 

 done that during the past season very little damage occurred 

 from the gypsy moth. The most severely infested towns at 

 present are Lexington, Woburn, Saugus, Lynn, Lynnfield 

 and Salem. 



During the past season it has been the policy of the State 

 authorities to thoroughly protect the roadside trees, thereby 

 stopping, so far as possible, the spread of the caterpillars by 

 means of vehicles. Another line of effort has been to keep 

 the residential sections as clear as possible of the gypsy moth, 



