ITS OUTBREAK IN 1889. 11 



At last a season arrived, that of 1889, when the moths 

 became so abundant in Glenwood and in some other parts of 

 Medford, and the consequent destruction of foliage so com- 

 plete, that the food supply gave out. Armies of " worms" 

 suddenly appeared in localities where they had never before 

 been noticed, and seemed about to destroy every green thing. 

 The growing caterpillars which had devoured the foliage in the 

 wooded land around Glenwood, being checked on the south 

 by the salt marsh, moved east, west and north. They re- 

 inforced those in the yards and orchards along Myrtle Street, 

 where most of the foliage had already been destroyed. The 

 supply of food there being at once exhausted, the caterpillars 

 marched from yard to yard and from tree to tree, their num- 

 bers constantly augmented by those they met, which in quick 

 succession were also forced by lack of food to join the hurry- 

 ing host. Their enforced movements from tree to tree, from 

 yard to yard, and from one street to another, in search of 

 food, in the summer of 1889, are well described by the in- 

 habitants. It will be seen that there was no general migra- 

 tion in any one direction. The movements were local, and 

 were directed mostly from those points where the foliage had 

 been entirely destroyed toward others where some still re- 

 mained. Such migrations had before been noticed in Glen- 

 wood whenever the foliage had been nearly all devoured. 

 Said Mrs. Belcher : 



My sister cried out one day, " They [the caterpillars] are march- 

 ing up the street." I went to the front door, and sure enough, the 

 street was black with them, coming across from my neighbor's, Mrs. 

 Clifford's, and heading straight for our yard. They had stripped 

 her trees, but our trees at that time were only partially eaten. 



Mrs. R. Tuttle, 22 Myrtle Street, writes : 



As fast as we gathered them, others would take their places. 

 They seemed to come just like a flock of sheep. 



Mrs. I. W. Hamlin, corner Myrtle and Spring streets, 

 said : 



Our yard was overrun with caterpillars. . . . When they got 

 their growth these caterpillars were bigger than your little finger, 



