344 MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 1908. 



Some undetermined species of predaceous bugs were found 

 near the saddled prominents but none were so numerous as 

 Podisns nwdestus. As this bug also feeds upon the caterpillars 

 of the brown-tail moth * it should be recognized as a benefactor 

 of considerable significance. 



No effort was made to secure evidence in regard to the host 

 of insect eating animals. Mr. Curtis A. Perry, Bridgton, 

 reports a pair of pet skunks as being very fond of the saddled 

 prominents, eating them voraciously. 



STARVATION. 



Before the middle of July at Upper Gloucester and other 

 badly infested places large areas had been already stripped. 

 This happened in many cases before the caterpillars were ready 

 to pupate and though the caterpillars sought new feeding 

 ground, as was evidenced by stripped orchards (see Fig. 32), 

 hordes of the caterpillars never reached suitable food and died 

 of starvation. These starving caterpillars would drop from 

 one defoliated tree and climb others only to find that no food 

 awaited them. Many climbed trees they could not eat when 

 nothing remained for them but to drop or climb down and try 

 another. Figure 40 shows a mass of such caterpillars that 

 had congregated about the base of a hemlock tree the foliage 

 of which they could not eat. 



CONTAGIOUS DISEASE. 



Where excessive numbers of caterpillars are present in one 

 place, favorable conditions arise for the spread of disease. 

 Late in July and in early August various species of caterpillars 

 were attacked by a disease and in some instances practically the 

 whole infestation of saddled prominents was wiped out. At 

 Mercer and elsewhere countless thousands of these caterpillars 

 died within a few days. They lay in heaps about the bases of 

 trees, in masses about stones, and hung limp where they had 

 fallen across the branches. Specimens of these caterpillars 

 were examined by Doctor Lewis, Associate Plant Pathol- 

 ogist of this Station, who found that the disease was due to a 

 fungus parasite but that bacteria set in among the sick cater- 

 pillars and hastened their decay. The destruction of the bodies 



See Me. Agr. Exp. Sta. Bui. No. 162 Insect Xotes for 1908. 



