No. 4.] GiTSY MOTH. 265 



EEPORT OF COMMITTEE ON GYPSY MOTH, INSECTS 

 AND BIRDS.* 



[Read aiid adopted at the Annual Meeting, Jan. 13, 1903.] 



Your committee on gypsy moth, insects and birds sub- 

 mits herewith its report for the year 1902. 



It may be well to state at the outset that since Feb. 1, 

 1900, no legislative appropriation has been available for 

 work against the gypsy moth. Your committee therefore 

 has not been required to carry on an active campaign 

 against this insect ; instead, its activities have been along 

 the lines of recording the increase and spread of the moth 

 and of advising property owners how best to combat it. 

 As a consequence, this report deals with the depredations 

 of the moth during the past season and its present known 

 distribution. 



Your committee has made inspections of the infested 

 territory before the eggs hatched in the spring, again when 

 the caterpillar plague was at its height, and still later after 

 the eggs had been deposited in the fall. From these in- 

 vestigations, as well as from voluntary reports of reliable 

 observers, it has been possible to follow with a considerable 

 degree of accuracy the development of all the .older and 

 more important moth colonies.! We have endeavored to 

 give a faithful yet conservative statement of the present 

 situation as regards the moth, — a situation which even in 

 its best aspects is sufficiently alarming. 



* House Document, No. 259, 1903. 



t For information concerning the spread of the moth we are especially 

 indebted to H. L. Frost, Arlington; C. E. Merrill, Melrose; C E. Mann and 

 "W. G. A. Turner, Maiden ; and A. H. Kirkland, Reading. 



