ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 73 



point oct to me several of the winter nests of the larvae as we travelled from Boston by 

 railway to Maiden, Mass. Most of these nests seemed to be in pear trees. Prof. Fer- 

 nald has published a bulletin on the subject, and also an extensive article in the proceed- 

 ings of the last meeting of the Association of Economic Entomologists which was held at 

 Boston. Both Prof. Fernald and Mr. Kirkland consider this insect as a serious pest and 

 urge that drastic measures should be adopted to exterminate it. The latter writes under 

 date, Oct. 5, 1898 :— 



" The Brown-tail Moth was not a severe pest here the past summer because of the 

 thorough work done last winter in destroying the winter webs of the young larvae. Where 

 this was neglected the caterpillars proved quite a scourge and from these neglected spots 

 no doubt the moths spread to no small degree in the flying season. The female, you will 

 remember, flies freely. A hopeful feature is the parasite help. We found the pupae 

 parasitised to quite an unexpected degree by Diglochis omnivorus, Walker, and by a few 

 larger hymenopterous parasites. Of course, I have only two years' experience to go by, 

 and from this as a basis no strong predictions can be made, but I should not be surprised 

 to see this insect spread gradually over New England and become a pest of about equal 

 rank with the Tent Caterpillar, perhaps worse. Since the female flies so well and is 

 doubtless carried on gales of wind, I can see no prospect of exterminating the insect. 

 While we know that the insect breeds well on many shade and forest trees, I doubt if it 

 becomes a pest at any great distance from orchards." 



Kollar, the Austrian entomologist, in his "Insects Injurious to Gardeners, Foresters, 

 etc.," says of this insect which he treats of under the name of the Yellow-tailed Moth : 

 84 It may justly be reckoned among the most destructive insects of the orchard. The 

 larvae often infesting fruit trees to such a degree that not a leaf or fruit remains uninjured, 

 as was the case in the year 1828." 



The caterpillars have a very wide range of food plants including nearly all of the 

 large and small fruits ; they will also attack a great many of the common perennial plants. 

 The favourite food seems to be the pear. Compared with the Gipsy Motb, as both the 

 male and female moths fly easily, the Brown-tail Moth has greater powers of spreading. 

 The life history of the species is as follows. The winter is passed by the partially grown 

 caterpillars, which hatch in August and feed for about six weeks upon the upper surface 

 of the leaves, stripping them of the skin and cellular tissue in the same way as is done by 

 the Pear Slug, leaving the skeletonized leaves brown and dead. The winter shelter con- 

 sists of several leaves spun together with silk, and a coloay of the young caterpillars re- 

 tires into this shelter in the latter part of September and remains dormant until the 

 following spring. They revive again just as the buds are bursting and do much harm at 

 that time, devouring the young leave?, flowers and forming fruit. When full-grown in 

 June they spin light cocoons among the leaves, and the moths emerge about three weeks 

 or a month later. The moths appear in July and the curious and beautiful egg masses 

 covered with golden fur-like down may be found on the leaves during this month. They 

 are elongated, depressed, and rounded above, more regular in outline than the egg masses 

 of the Gipsy Moth, but like them protected by a densely felted covering consisting of the 

 golden brown hairs from the anal tuft of the female. Not only are the caterpillars of this 

 insect voracious feeders upon the foliage of many kinds of trees and plants ; but they are also 

 the cause of much annoyance from the stinging hairs of the larvae and pupae. This stinging 

 is of much the same nature but more intense than that caused by the hairs of the species 

 of Halisidota. Prof. Fernald states that many persons in the infested region suffered so 

 severely as to require the aid of a physician and the irritation was so annoying to some of 

 the Gipsy Moth employees that the chemist was directed to investigate the matter to dis- 

 cover the cause and to find out if possible an antidote. Prof. Fernald concludes his article 

 (Bull. 17, New Series, U. S. Dep of Agriculture, Div. of Ent.) as follows. "The 

 nettling of the skin may bs caused by contact with the caterpillars, both old and young, 

 or the cocoons, but in the latter case contact is not necessary, as the hairs from the cocoous 

 are blown about by the wind. An English journal mentions the fact that travellers are 

 often affected when the wind blows strongly from infested hedges along the side of the 

 road." 



