192 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



where the Ulster and Delaware railroad sometimes side-track freisfht 

 trains. The caterpillars began their depredations at this railway siding 

 and swept up the hill over an area a mile and a half long by half a mile 

 wide, taking hard maple, apple, pear, plum, beech, birch, poplar and 

 other trees in their destructive course. The nut trees they did not 

 attack and strange to say, they left every soft maple in their track 

 untouched. 



The caterpillars were also operating in the village on the shade trees, 

 and the garden fruit trees, but were not plentiful enough to do much 

 damage or cause much comment. 



At Clarks Factory, Delaware county, Mr H. O. Van Benscoten owns 

 an extensive sugar orchard of over one hundred acres. It has been 

 stripped of its foliage till not one leaf remains. The maple forests, at 

 Andes, Grand Gorge, Bush Ridge, and Fleischmanns, Delaware county, 

 Prattsville and other points in Greene county have also been stripped of 

 foliage. Wherever the caterpillars have appeared they have defoliated 

 the apple and fruit orchards. 



The complete and extensive injury is well shown in plates 1-4, which 

 were taken by Mr Ingram. 



This year Mr R. G. Smith reported that 125 acres covered with 

 maples were defoliated at Russell, St Lawrence county. Severe ravages 

 by this species were reported from Lewis county, many timber lots 

 appearing as though fire had run through them, as it was put by a corres- 

 pondent of the weather bureau. At. Trenton Falls, Oneida county, the 

 caterpillars were very numerous in the woods and some trees were nearly 

 defoliated. Several observers reported serious injuries by this insect in 

 Otsego county, Westford, Decatur and Worcester being localities specially 

 mentioned by Mr O. Q. Flint, of xlthens, N. Y. A report came to me 

 that the forests were stripped by this species in Exeter, and Mr C: F. 

 Wheelock, head inspector of the University, informed me that he had 

 observed considerable injury to forest trees in the same county. Its 

 ravages were noted in Delaware county by Mr Flint at Roxbury and 

 Stamford. Many trees were defoliated in Greene county, its operations 

 in Lexington and Halcott coming under the observation of Mr Flint and 

 those at Tannersville being reported by Miss K. E. TurnbuU. The 

 abundance and destructiveness of this insect at Glens Falls, Warren 

 county, was brought to my attention early in the season by Mr C. L. 

 Williams. At Lake George many of the trees on the islands were 

 defoliated by this insect, the Canoe islands appearing as though swept 

 by fire, according to Mrs J. R. Gilmore. Severe injuries were also 

 reported from Vermont both last year and the present season. That the 

 actual depredator in cases cited abov^e was always this species, could not 

 be determined in every instance by examination of the caterpillars^ 

 though an effort was made to secure examples whenever practicable, 



