1897.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — Xo. 33. 85 



REPORT OF THE EIS^TOMOLOGIST. 



CHARLES H. FERNALD. 



In the early part of J 896 the gypsy moth report mentioned 

 last year was published by the State. This work consists 

 of a bound volume of G08 pages, with 3 colored and 63 nn- 

 Golored plates, and with 5 maps and 37 cuts in the text. 

 The first part, comprising 263 pages, was prepared l)y the 

 field director, and the second parf, 244 pages, by myself, 

 while the Appendix of 100 pages contains the reports of 

 visiting entomologists and other papers. This work repre- 

 sents all that we were al)le to learn, up to the time of publi- 

 cation, of the history and habits of the notorious gypsy moth, 

 its ravages in foreign countries as well as in our own, the 

 means used for fighting it in other lands and also its natural 

 enemies. Our experiments with methods for the destruction 

 of this insect are still in progress, and occupy a large amount 

 of time in study and work. 



Quite extended studies have been carried on during the year 

 on the spruce gall-louse (^Chermes abietis Linn.), mainly by 

 my assistant, Mr. R. A. Cooley, who with great care and per- 

 severance has worked out the life history of this insect, which 

 causes peculiar cone-like galls to form on the twigs of diflerent 

 varieties of spruce, rendering them unsightly and often nearly 

 destroying them. The results of these studies are pul)lished in 

 the thirty-fourth annual report of the college, with two plates 

 showing the work and different stages in the life of this insect. 

 Mr. Cooley was fortunate enough in his experiments to dis- 

 cover a good practical remedy for this insect, which consists in 

 spraying the trees with a strong solution of whale-oil soap 

 at the time these insects are in the most exposed state, which 

 occurs during the winter or in the early spring, and also to 

 cut oft' and burn the new sails in June before the insects 



