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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



destroying caterpillars of the gipsy-moth 

 and the brown-tail moth, as well as native 

 speeies, while it was difficult to lift a 

 piece of loose bark from an old tree with- 

 out finding dead pupae of the gipsy-moth 

 bearing the characteristic slit, shown on 

 page 53, made by the jaws of the Calo- 

 soma larv£e. 



A number of other species of Calosoma 

 have been brought in from Europe, as 

 well as from Japan and from different 

 parts of the United States, and liberated 

 in the infested territory. None of them, 

 however, is worthy of mention in com- 

 parison with the Calosoma sycophanta, 

 which has undoubtedly become a perma- 

 nent denizen of our country and a most 

 beneficial one. Millions of injurious 

 caterpillars will be devoured by them this 

 summer. 



It will not be necessary to particularize 

 about the numerous species of true para- 

 sites that have been imported. They have 

 been brought in from many different 

 countries, some of them by our own 

 trained men sent out for the purpose, 

 some by paid foreign agents, and very 

 many of them — and this is most interest- 

 ing — by officials of foreign governments, 

 who have taken no end of trouble to aid 

 us, not only on account of their interest 

 in this wholesale experiment, but as an 

 act of official courtesy to the United 

 States. And it is worthy o^f note that 

 one of the great amateur entomologists 

 of Europe — M. Rene Oberthiir, of Paris 

 and Rennes — has been of the utmost as- 

 sistance through his fertile suggestions 

 and active work. 



the; egg-eating fly 



One extremely interesting parasite, 

 however, may be especially mentioned, 

 namely, the Japanese egg parasite of the 

 gipsy-moth, known as Schedius kuvancE, 

 which the writer had great pleasure in 

 naming after Prof. S. I. Kuwana, of the 

 Imperial University at Tokyo. This para- 

 site is a very minute Chalcis fly, so small 

 as to undergo its entire development in 

 a single gipsy-moth egg. Its existence in 

 Japan was unknown until the demand for 

 parasites for America began. 



The first specimens were reared from 

 Japanese eggs sent to this country in De- 



cember, 1908, and others issued in April, 

 1909. They bred rapidly, laying their eggs 

 in American gipsy - moth eggs brought 

 into the laboratory and on through the 

 summer at the rate of one generation a 

 month. 



By the first of the following year one 

 million individuals were present in rear- 

 ing cages in the field laboratory, and the 

 following March the parasitized eggs 

 were divided into 100 lots, each of which 

 contained approximately 10,000 parasites, 

 and were put out in colonies, while a 

 large quantity of parasitized eggs re- 

 mained and were placed in cold storage 

 awaiting the appearance of fresh eggs of 

 the gipsy-moth in the latter part of the 

 summer. This hope was vain, however, 

 and when the eggs were taken from cold 

 storage not a single living specimen re- 

 mained. By the end of 1910 hopes of the 

 survival of the species in the field were 

 almost abandoned ; but, in spite of an ap- 

 parent enormous decrease in their num- 

 bers at that time, the insect has finally 

 accommodated itself to New England 

 conditions and is breeding rapidly and 

 spreading slowly from points where it 

 succeeded in maintaining itself. 



In the meantime, although the spread 

 by natural means is slow, the minute 

 adult flying but a short distance, it is 

 being artificially spread and parasitized 

 eggs are being taken into the laboratory, 

 and as soon as the adults issue these are 

 being taken to new localities in tubes (see 

 pages 45 and 47). Each tube contains 

 1,600 adult Schedius ; and two tubes, con- 

 taining 3,200 adults in all, are used for 

 each new colony. In the laboratory, 

 trays, as shown on page 45, are used for 

 the rearing, each tray being stocked with 

 one million gipsy-moth eggs. 



Still another egg parasite, known as 

 Anastatus hifasciaUis, which was sent 

 over from Hungary by Prof. Joseph 

 Jablonowski, also succeeded. One mil- 

 lion five hundred thousand parasites _o£ 

 this species have been liberated during 

 the past year. Eight hundred colonies 

 were placed in towns along the western 

 border of infestation, and the balance 

 were liberated in a number of towns in 

 the northern part of Massachusetts. Dur- 

 ing November, 1913, collections were 



