barton] THE BAGWORM DRIVE 111 



host and escape as a winged insects to prey upon others. If, as 

 originally planned the cocoons had been burned the parasites 

 would have been destroyed, so it was determined to preserve the 

 cocoons and capture the fly. 



The method pursued is not without interest. The cocoons 

 were put in sealed boxes and inverted test tubes inserted through 

 the sides somewhat resembling minature forts. The parasites 

 seeking daylight will fly into these tubes. This will give the class 

 a very wonderful and "close up" study of the enemies of the bag- 

 worm such as they would otherwise be unable to obtain. At the 

 proper time, the parasites will be liberated to prey upon those 

 cocoons which were so high up they could not be reached or so 

 camouflaged they escaped the eyes of the boys and girls. 



The value of this "Drive", aside from teaching the children the 

 history of the bagworm and its enemies impresses upon us the bene- 

 fit to be derived from supervised co-operation. If the children of 

 Washington, D. C, in this one effort could obtain such excellent 

 results, how much could the children of this United States accom- 

 plish under well directed supervision, such as a trained corps of 

 nature study teachers in all our schools ? Naturally this furnished 

 good material for written work in the schools. The two composi- 

 tions following represent extremes of interest. 



January 13, 1919. 

 How I Got My Bag Worms 



A short time ago our nature teacher told us that she wanted us to 

 do something that would help the city and teach us a great deal. 

 We were to enter a "Bag Worm Drive" to last two weeks. 



I admit I was very lazy the first week, but toward the end of it 

 I went to an empty lot near by and seeing a few bag worms high 

 in one tree, tried to push them off with a stick. Failing in that I 

 looked around for more. I then remembered that they were 

 mostly on evergreen trees so I went to the other side of the lot 

 where a group of evergreens stood and to my surprise they were 

 covered with bag worms. I had only brought a small oyster box 

 and I soon had that filled. I looked around for something else 

 to put them in and seeing a newspaper I put the bagworms on it. 

 I had filled the box three times when a policeman came up and 

 asked me what I was taking off the trees. I told him I was gather- 



