544 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



most vigorous methods will protect badly infested trees from severe 

 injury. The masses of caterpillars found on the larger limbs and on the 

 trunk can be crushed in large numbers with a stiff broom or thickly 

 gloved hands. A more agreeable method is to spray these clusters with 

 kerosene emulsion or with whale oil soap solution (one pound to four 

 gallons), or to pour boiling water over them. 



This pest can be controlled by spraying with arsenical poisons where 

 the trees are not too large for the apparatus at hand. If the caterpillars 

 are nearly full grown and many are crawling to the sprayed trees from 

 others, it is perfectly possible that all the foliage will be devoured before 

 the pests have eaten enough poison to kill them, but under most condi- 

 tions there need be little fear of the arsenical spray proving ineffectual if 

 it is properly applied. The cost attendant upon this method will lead 

 people to depend largely on other means. 



After the damage has been done, many of the insects are within man's 

 power and can be killed in their cocoons. From about the middle to 

 the last of June thousands of cocoons can be collected with but little 

 labor and if this is done opportunity should be given the beneficial 

 parasites to escape before the cocoons are destroyed. Every healthy 

 female pupa killed means one less egg mass to produce its approximately 

 150 or 200 hungry caterpillars another season. 



It is believed that by fighting this insect in the egg, caterpillar and 

 pupa states our shade trees can be preserved from serious injury. Native 

 birds should be protected in all localities and, specially in forests, they 

 must be our principal allies in subduing this terrible pest. Robins, 

 orioles, chipping sparrows, cat birds, cuckoos, red eyed, white eyed and 

 warbling vireos, cedar birds and nuthatches have been observed feeding 

 on this insect by Caroline G. Soule. E. H. Forbush, ornithologist 

 to the state board of agriculture of Massachusetts has kindly supplied me 

 with the following list of birds observed feeding on forest tent catefpillars : 

 oriole, black billed cuckoo, yellow billed cuckoo, crow, blue jay, redstart, 

 nuthatch, woodthrush, chewink, black and white creeper, red eyed vireo, 

 flicker and scarlet tanager. V. H. Lowe has observed the black capped 

 chickadee feeding on the eggs. Prof. C. M. Weed states that the robin, 

 chipping sparrow, yellow bird and English sparrow feed on the moths. 



17 year cicada. Considerable interest was manifested in the 

 appearance in the western part of the state of brood 19 of Cicada 

 septendecim Linn. The following list of locaHties, incomplete 

 though it be, is given as a matter of record. Cayuga county : the cicada 



