462 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



place the chief responsibility for the scarcity of insect life 

 on the drought. 



This view of the case is corroborated in general by state- 

 ments of the entomologist of the University of Maine, at 

 Orono (where little rain fell during either May or June), 

 who says that the scarcity of insects there was a matter of 

 general comment. She also says that several of the more 

 common pests were not especially troublesome, and that the 

 scarcity of grasshoppers was generally noticed. She men- 

 tions, in addition to other possible causes of this mortality 

 among insects, the late frost, but does not positively assign 

 any cause. 



Mr. A. H. Kirkland of Boston, who is well known for his 

 connection with practical economic entomology, states that 

 he has never seen a time when there was so little trouble 

 from common native insect pests. He writes : "I presume 

 the long period of drought had something to do with it. If 

 it had not been for the gypsy moth and certain species of 

 plant-lice, the year would have been practically featureless 

 from an entomological stand-point, so far as this State is 

 concerned." 



Conditions similar to those prevailing here were wide- 

 spread. Prof. L. O. Howard, chief of the Division of 

 Entomology, United States Department of Agriculture, 

 writes that the early drought and the June rains prevailed 

 over a large part of the Atlantic seaboard, and there was 

 generally a scarcity of insect life except for plant-lice, which 

 thrived under the rainy conditions. He attributes the 

 apparent thrift of the aphides to the fact that their natural 

 enemies, especially the braconid parasites, cannot fly during 

 rainy weather, and so the plant-lice breed unchecked. 



Possibly no one in Massachusetts has made a careful study 

 of the causes by which the general repressive effect on insect 

 life was produced. Inquiry of the official entomologists in 

 other New England States indicates that no special study of 

 the subject has been made by them.* 



* The general scarcity of Insects here during the dry weather may have been 

 largely responsible for the small number of warblers during the spring flight, 

 for migrating birds will not usually stop long where food is not plenty. 



