752 The American Naturalist. - [August, 
* Wherever worthless, hollow trees were found infested, they were 
felled and burned. More than one hundred acres of brush and wood- 
land have been burned over, and everything upon it destroyed. Stone 
walls in which eggs were laid were thoroughly cleaned by fire. In this 
way vast numbers of moths and their eggs were destroyed during the 
season. 
“As it was observed early in the campaign that the distribution of 
the caterpillars was effected largely by their falling from the trees upon 
teams, an effort was made to destroy all eggs upon trees on or near 
the highways. Before the hatching of the eggs, many of the large 
street trees in Malden, most of those in Medford and some in Somer- 
ville, were banded with strips of tarred paper. This work was first 
undertaken in Medford. It was proposed by the selectmen of that 
town as a means of protecting the street trees from the gypsy moth and 
the canker worm. It proved a very effective means of preventing the 
depredations of each of these species. The town furnished the labor 
and paper for banding the trees in Medford. These strips were kept 
moist by a regular application of a mixture that the caterpillars could 
not cross. Great numbers of eggs had been deposited on buildings, fences 
and other objects near the trees. As soon as the young caterpillars 
left the eggs, instinct led them to the trees, and, as they crawled upward 
to find food, many were entangled in the cotton waste under the tarred 
paper and perished. Many more succeeded in getting upon the paper, 
and, in cases where they were very numerous, would undoubtedly have 
bridged the mixture upon the paper with their bodies, until some had 
passed over. The men employed in applying the mixture from day to 
day prevented this by killing them with their brushes. Some eggs in 
the trees which had been missed in the spring doubtless hatched, but 
most of the caterpillars descended from the tree at one time or another, 
and were unable to return. This greatly reduced the danger that had 
seemed imminent in the spring,—that the caterpillars would be distri- 
buted in large numbers.” 
Various other methods of destruction are now being used, and valu- 
able experiments with insecticides are being carried on, chiefly at 
Amherst in the insectary of the Hatch Experiment Station under the 
direction of Professor Fernald. 
It seems to me after a careful inspection of the work in progress that 
it is being well done, and that its continuation is a matter of national 
importance. Should this insect become generally distributed it would 
be liable to cause enormous losses, and even if European parasites were 
introduced there would inevitably be fluctuations in numbers which 
