BROWN-TAIL MOTH AND OTHER ORCHARD MOTHS. l6l 



"The habit of the caterpillar in wintering over in webs at the 

 tips of the leaves gives a key to the simplest and cheapest 

 remedy, which is merely to cut off and burn webs during the 

 fall, winter or spring. This preventive means is most effective, 

 and gives such excellent results that in Germany, France and 

 Belgium there is a law making it obligatory on property owners 

 to destroy the webs during the winter season. Where citizens 

 neglect to carry out this work it is done for them, and the sum 

 thus expended added to their tax levy." * 



The; Gypsy Moth. Porthetria a lis par. A Foreword. 



The gypsy moth has not yet been found in Maine. The 

 entrance of this pest, however, is probably only a matter of time. 

 Unlike the brown-tail moth, the female gypsy moth is weak- 

 winged and is thus unable to deposit eggs far from the cocoon 

 from which she emerges. It is due to this in part that this moth 

 has not yet found its way here, for it has been in eastern Massa- 

 chusetts for thirty-six years and its ravages for the past sixteen 

 years are well known. 



In a district badly infested by the caterpillars of the gypsy 

 moth no garden vegetable except the onion is safe ; flowers and 

 grass are eaten, and practically all fruit and forest trees are 

 defoliated, pines and other coniferous trees dying as the result 

 of a single stripping and deciduous trees not being able to with- 

 stand a three years' attack. 



There is no such simple and comparatively inexpensive means 

 of combating the gypsy moths as with the brown-tail moth, for 

 they do not hang their colonies in plain sight all winter, but pass 

 this season in the less conspicuous egg stage, the egg clusters 

 being hidden in any crevice the infested area offers. These 

 caterpillars are more resistant to poison sprays than those of the 

 brown-tail moth and the problem is in many ways more diffi- 

 cult. It is the wise man who looks ahead and an additional 

 argument for clearing out the growths which are already over- 

 run with orchard caterpillars, (the brown-tail moth among 

 them), is presented by the fact that southwestern Maine is the 

 point where the first infestation of the gypsy moth would natur- 

 ally occur. Nothing by way of watchfulness, instruction or 



* Mass. Crop Report, Vol. 17, No. 3, p. 39. 



