No. 4.] THE GYPSY MOTH. 301 



centre were first visited by the men engaged in destroying eggs. 

 The men worked from these towns toward Maiden and Medford. 

 Before this work was completed the eggs began to hatch. This 

 rendered thorough work an impossibility. No attempt was made, 

 therefore, in the spring, to complete this work in Maiden and Med- 

 ford, except upon trees on or near the highways. 



Cutting and Burning. 

 Wherever worthless, hollow trees were found infested, they were 

 felled and burned. More than one hundred acres of brush and 

 woodland have been burned over, and everything upon it destroyed. 

 Stone walls in which eggs were laid were thoroughly cleaned by 

 fire. In this way vast numbers of moths and their eggs were 

 destroyed during the season. 



Banding Trees. 

 As it was observed early in the campaign that the distribution 

 of the caterpillars was effected largely by their falling from the 

 trees upon teams, an effort was made to destroy all eggs upon 

 trees on or near the highways. Before the hatching of the eggs, 

 many of the large street trees in Maiden, most of those in Med- 

 ford and some in Somerville, were banded with strips of tarred 

 paper. This work was first undertaken in Medford. It was pro- 

 posed by the selectmen of that town as a means of protecting the 

 street trees from the gypsy moth and the canker worm. It proved 

 a very effective means of preventing the depredations of each of 

 these species. The town furnished the labor and paper for baud- 

 ing the trees in Medford. These strips were kept moist by 

 regular applications of a mixture that the caterpillars could not 

 cross. Great numbers of eggs had been deposited on buildings, 

 fences and other objects near the trees. As soon as the young 

 caterpillars left the eggs, instinct led them to the trees, and, as 

 they crawled upward to find food, many were entangled in the 

 cotton waste under the tarred paper and perished. Many more 

 succeeded in getting upon the paper, and, in cases where they 

 were very numerous, would undoubtedly have bridged the mixture 

 upon the paper with their bodies, until some had passed over. 

 The men employed in applying the mixture from day to day 

 prevented this by killing them with their brushes. Some eggs in 

 the trees which had been missed in the spring doubtless hatched, 

 but most of the caterpillars descended from the tree at one time 

 or another, and were unable to return. This greatly reduced the 

 danger that had seemed imminent in tne spring, — that the cater- 

 pillars would be distributed in large numbers. 



