GYPSY AND BROWN-TAIL MOTHS. 25 



within the infested area. In every instance they attacked the 

 freshly deposited eggs of the moth with avidity, and reproduc- 

 tion in the field under perfectly natural conditions resulted. 

 At the present time there are many thousands of the larvae of 

 the parasite hibernating in the open in the immediate vicinity 

 of the colonies, exactly as they would do in their native land, 

 and there is hardly room to doubt that they will issue next 

 summer in the normal manner. 



In one respect only is the insect disappointing. It appears 

 to resemble the gypsy moth, in that the females do not fly. 

 The utmost endeavors have been made to determine accurately 

 the distance to which it travelled from, each of the points where 

 it was liberated, and the results indicate that 100 feet is about 

 the limit. This is a rate of dispersion slower than that of the 

 gypsy moth itself, and it would take a great many years for the 

 parasite to spread over the entire infested area. Additional 

 importations will be made during the present winter, and it is 

 hoped that a large number of colonies will be established next 

 summer, but no immediate benefits can be expected. 



Schedius kuvancB. 

 Most fortunately it is not necessary to depend exclusively 

 upon the Anastatus as a parasite of the eggs of the gypsy moth, 

 for in Japan there is another (Fig. 5) with similar habits, in 

 so far as the object of its attack is identical ; outside of this fact, 

 it is different in many important particulars. Instead of con- 

 fining its attack to the freshly deposited eggs, it rather prefers 

 those in which the embryonic caterpillars have developed, and, 

 since these caterpillars are fuUy formed, and so far as appear- 

 ances go ready to hatch within three weeks after the eggs are 

 deposited in the summer, Schedius is actually a parasite of the 

 unhatched caterpillar, rather than of the egg. Instead of re- 

 quiring a full year to complete the life cycle from egg to adult, 

 it completes a generation once every three or four weeks during 

 the warmer part of the summer, or in the winter if kept in rooms 

 properly warmed. It is thus able to go through at least two 

 generations during the fall, after the eggs of the moth have been 

 deposited, and before cold weather puts a stop to its activity. 



