DANGER TO HEALTH 



53 



One of the most serious effects of the presence of the Brown- 

 tail Moth in a community is that of the peculiar skin disease 

 it may produce. Some of the hairs of the full-grown cater- 

 pillars are furnished with minute barbs. When the caterpil- 

 lars molt these barbed hairs 

 are shed with the skin, and 

 ^s the skins become drv and 

 are blown about by the wind 

 the hairs may be quite gen- 

 erally disseminated. When 

 the hairs alight upon the 

 human skin they cause an 

 irritation, which upon rub- 

 bing may develop into in- 

 flammation. In New Hamp- 

 shire this phase of the in- 

 sect's presence has already 

 become evident. At Ports- 

 mouth a clothes-reel was 

 near a tree infested by the 

 ■caterpillars. The family were 

 greatly troubled through the 

 summer by extraordinary 

 irritations of the skin, for 

 which they were unable to 

 account, but which were 

 doubtless due to caterpillar 

 hairs blown from the pear 

 tree to the clothes upon the 

 reel. In the same city a gen- 

 tleman, in removing a cat- 

 erpillar which had landed 

 upon his neck, scattered some 

 of the hairs, which produced 

 an eruption similar to but 

 ■considerably worse than that produced by poison ivy. 



In Massachusetts, where the infestation has been longer 

 known, this danger has become verv generally recognized. 

 The following experiences recorded in the report on the 



Fig. 6.— Winter Nest of Brown-tail Moth on a 

 Wild Cherry Twig. Slightly reduced. 



