106 THE GIPSY MOTH. 
amined as often as possible when caterpillars were found, 
but if no caterpillars were found at the first two or three 
examinations, these burlaps were not examined for two or 
three weeks. 
As the season was unusually late, the caterpillars had 
not acquired the night-feeding habit by the time the bur- 
laps had been applied, June 20, so that labor in examining 
the bands at this time would have been wasted. Accord- 
ingly the state inspector employed the contractor's men 
for two weeks in pruning, scraping and sealing the holes 
in the trees of the badly infested orchards. Some roadside 
cutting was also done in Hampton and North Hampton. 
During this time twenty-nine of the worst colonies were 
wholly or partly cleaned. 
Beginning July 5, the burlaps were examined as often as 
possible for the caterpillars of the gipsy moth and in 171 
of the 495 infested localities caterpillars were secured, the 
number destroyed in each case varying from many thou- 
sand in the larger colonies in Rye to less than twenty-five 
in many of the minor infestations. This work stopped 
August 7. Although some instances of negligence on the 
part of some of the contractor's men have recently come 
to light, their work was as satisfactory on the whole as 
was expected under the conditions. As the work of scrap- 
ing and pruning" and sealing the holes in the trees was 
wholly neglected except for the comparatively few places 
cleaned during June, a large part of the burlapping was 
not as effective as it would have been had such cleaning up 
been done in the spring. 
During November, 1907, two crews of men were placed at 
work in Dover and North Hampton, cleaning trees in in- 
fested spots, and similar work is now going on. At this 
time the work was in charge of Mr. George E. Merrill, to 
whom I am indebted for furnishing most of the data con- 
cerning the work during the year 1907. Mr. Merrill out- 
lined his policy for the work of the winter, as follows: "As 
the amount of money at the disposal of the agent is wholly 
