BROWN-TAIL MOTH AND PARASITES IN EUROPE. 135 
numerous as to lay their eggs in quantities on growing nursery seed- 
lings and low-growing plants. 
Among the very many lots oi caterpillars and cocoons which have 
been received at the laboratory there is occasionally one in which a 
fungous disease is present. Usually, when it is present at all, the 
majority of the caterpillars received from that particular locality 
will be found dead and ‘‘shooting”’ the ascidiospores upon receipt. 
According to Dr. Roiand Thaxter, to whom specimens have several 
times been submitted, it is specifically identical with the fungus 
which is so effective in America as to have largely assisted in reduc- 
ing the moth from the preeminent place which it would otherwise 
have occupied as a pest. Its presence under these conditions, as it 
was, for example, in 1909, in practically every box out of a large 
number which were forwarded to the laboratory from lower Austria, 
is strongly indicative of the importance of this disease. 
Looked at from one standpoint, the brown-tail moth situation in 
America is less satisfactory than is the gipsy-moth situation. In 
numerous localities throughout western Europe as well as in eastern 
Europe it frequently increases to such an extent as to become a 
pest. It hardly seems as though more could be expected of the 
European parasites in America than is accomplished by them in 
Europe, but if even this much can be secured it will aid materially 
in reducing the frequency of the outbreaks. At the same time, it must 
be admitted that from nearly every point of view the prospects of 
unqualified success with the gipsy-moth parasites are better than 
with the parasites of the brown-tail moth. 
SEQUENCE OF PARASITES OF THE BROWN-TAIL MOTH IN EUROPE. 
The accompanying table (Table III), in which are listed all of the 
parasites of the brown-tail moth which have been definitely asso- 
ciated with that host in the course of the studies of imported Euro- 
pean material, is constructed in the same manner as the tables of 
parasites of the gipsy moth in Japan and in Europe (see pp. 121, 132). 
It will be noted that the number and variety are slightly larger than of 
European gipsy-moth parasites, and that the species which are or 
which appear to be promising as subjects for attempted importation 
are also slightly more numerous. Very rarely, however, does any 
one among them become as relatively important as any one of 
several among the gipsy-moth parasites which might be mentioned. 
Neither has any lot of brown-tail material produced so many para- 
sites of all species (as high a percentage of parasitism) as have several 
lots of gipsy-moth material. 
