114 _ PARASITES OF GIPSY AND BROWN-TAIL MOTHS. 
Without attempting to go into the details of rather elaborate cal- 
culations, which were made for the purpose of bringing out this point 
more graphically, attention is merely called to the three divisions 
into which the elements operative in the natural control of any insect 
naturally fall as they were outlined in the preceding section. These 
are, first, the catastrophic (storms, etc.), which result in the destruc- 
tion of a certain fixed percentage, irrespective of the abundance of 
the insect; second, that represented by the birds, most other preda- 
tors, and a part of the parasites which encompass the destruction of 
a certain gross number, rather than of any given percentage each 
year or generation; third, the facultative agencies, of which certain 
parasites are considered. to be typical, which increase in efficiency as 
the insect increases in abundance. 
The elements composing this last group are absent in New England, 
or, rather, those elements which are present (disease and starvation) 
and which do not properly belong to it, are inoperative until a state 
of extreme abundance is attained. 
Such control as is effected by existing agencies would therefore fall 
into one or the other of the first two groups mentioned, and since 
both groups together are obviously inefficient, even when the moth 
is scarce, that due to the operation of the elements falling in the 
second group would become relatively less efficient as the time went 
on and the moth increased. This, it is believed, is actually what has 
happened and what is happening each year in each of the very 
numerous outlying colonies of the gipsy moth throughout the more 
recently infested territory, and thus the larger rate of increase is 
explained. 
As a matter of fact, there is reason to believe that the average rate 
of increase during the first few years «immediately following the intro- 
duction of the moth in a new locality is actually less than sixfold 
annually, and that it may even be as low as threefold, or perhaps less. 
In any case, there is a stage in the progress of the moth in which the 
average is no greater than that recorded by Forbush and Fernald, 
and there is no longer room for doubt that the lowest rate of increase 
is in localities where the moth is relatively a rare or uncommon 
insect for the time being, while the highest occurs in localities where 
the moth is rapidly approaching its maximum abundance. 
AMOUNT OF ADDITIONAL CONTROL NECESSARY TO CHECK THE 
INCREASE OF THE GIPSY MOTH IN AMERICA. 
It was evident in 1907, as it is now, that the problem of the intro- 
duction of parasites was far from being as simple as it might appear 
to be upon its surface and as it evidently did appear to be to some 
who were at that time agitating for a radical change in the methods 
adopted for its solution. It was plain that the expense incident to 
Fail a ae 
