32 



t 



southward to North Carolina, westward over the Alleghany moun- 

 tains into "West Virginia, and northward to the New England 

 states, causing severe damage, particularly to city elms. 



Occurrence in Massachusetts. 



The elm-leaf beetle appears to have entered Massachusetts from 

 the south several years ago, and has gradually spread northward 

 along the Connecticut and Housatonic rivers. A lateral diffusion 

 of the insect is now taking place in the valleys of the streams 

 contributing to these rivers, and probably along the main lines of 

 our railroads. In Berkshire county, severe injury has been caused 

 by the insect at Sheffield and Great Barrington. Mr. H. L. Frost 

 informs me that the beetles are fewer in number and the damage 

 much less in extent at Stockbridge and Lenox, although these 

 towns are more or less infested. The damage to the elms at 

 Springfield has been previously mentioned. Here the insects were 

 injuriously abundant in 1895, their depredations continuing to the 

 present time. In the same year Dr. L. O. Howard found the 

 beetle abundant at Holyoke and Northampton, and in smaller 

 numbers at Miller's Falls. Prof. C. H. Fernald found it at 

 Amherst in 1895. 



At the present writing the beetle has spread westward along 

 the Westfield river to West Springfield and Westfield, and along 

 the Mill river to Williamsburg, in each of which towns it was 

 locally injurious in 1898. In the present year outbreaks of the 

 insect have developed at Lougmeadow and at Chicopee. 



Previous to 1898 eastern Massachusetts escaped damage by the 

 elm-leaf beetle. So far as known to the writer the only specimens 

 of the insect taken in this region before 1898 were the ones found 

 by Prof. F. M. Webster " north of Salem" in 1895, by Frank A. 

 Bates at Winthrop in 1896, and by the writer at Plymouth in the 

 latter year. That the insect has not been seriously injurious in 

 Boston and its older suburbs has been a matter hard to understand, 

 for the many compact plantings of English elms in this region 

 offer ideal conditions for the insect's development, while the num- 

 erous railroads terminating here afford ready means for its trans- 

 portation. It seems, however, that we are not always to remain 

 free from injury by this pest, for in 1898 a severe outbreak 

 occurred at Groton, only thirty miles to the northwest of Boston, 

 while the insect was also abundant, though in less numbers, at 

 Ayer on the main line of the Fitchburg railroad. During the 

 present season the writer has taken the beetles at Maiden, while 

 Mr. A. F. Burgess found a number of the larvae at Newton, near 



