477 



served, and who shall refuse or neglect to abate tlie same, within the time specified, 

 it shall be the duty of the county board of horticultural commissioners to cause 

 said nuisance to be at once abated, by eradicating^ or destroying said insects or 

 other pests, or their eggs or larva?. The expense thereof shall be a county charge, 

 and the board of supervisors shall allow and jiay the same out of the general fund 

 of the county. Any and all sum or sums so placed shall be and become a lien on 

 the property and premises from which said nuisance has been removed or abated, 

 in pursuance of this act, and may be recovered by an action against such proi)erty 

 and premises, which action to foreclose all such liens shall be in the proper court 

 by the district attorney of the county, in the name and for the benefit of the 

 county making such payment or payments, and when the property is sold, enough 

 of the proceeds shall be paid into the county treasury of such county to satisfy the 

 lien and costs; and the overplus, if any there be, shall be paid to the owner of 

 the prope;ty, if he be known, and if not, into the court for his use when ascer- 

 tained. The county board of horticultural commissioners is hereby vested with 

 power to cause any and all such nuisances to be at once abated iu a summary manner. 

 Sec. 2. This a*ct shall take etfect and be in force from and after its passage. 



INSECTS STOPPING TRAINS— A TRUE STORY. 



Oil page 30 of vol. i of Insect Life, under the caption " Caterpil- 

 lars stopping trains — a newspaper exaggeration," we gave an account 

 of the supposed stopping of trains on a trestle over the Pedee Kiverin 

 South Carolina, in 1887, by myriads of Cotton Caterpillars, which 

 proved upon investigation to be a gross exaggeration. The present 

 spring, four years later, the Eceniiuj Star of Washington, under date of 

 May 4, published a dispatch from Charlotte, North Carolina, stating 

 that the rails on the Carolina Central Railroad were recentlj' covered 

 inches deep with caterpillars, and that for three days in succession 

 trains were brought to a dead standstill, the driving wheels of the 

 engines slipping round as though tlie rails had been thoroughly oiled. 

 The engineers were obliged to exhaust the contents of their sandboxes 

 before crossing the strip of swamp from which the caterpillars seemed 

 to come. The rails and cross-ties were said to be obscured from sight, 

 and the ground and swamps on each side of the track were covered 

 with millions of the crushed caterpillars, and from the mass an unen- 

 durable stench arose. 



On May 6 we sent one of our assistants, Mr. A. B. Cordley, to Char- 

 lotte, and upon his investigation the facts as stated were found to be 

 substantially true. The locality where the caterpillars were most 

 abundant was at the "Big Swamp," about eight miles east of Lumber- 

 ton. The species proved to be the Tent Caterpillar of the forest ( Clisio- 

 campa dissiria Huebn.). Mr. Cordley drove for eight miles through the 

 forestfrom Lumberton to Big Swamp, and noticed that nearly all the oak 

 and gum trees were completely defoliated, lie was told by a gentleman 

 who had recently traveled nearly all over Robeson County and an 

 adjacent county, that wherever he had been the oaks and gums were 

 badly defoliated. ]\Ir. Cordley also interviewed the crew of one of the 

 trains which was stopped, and ascertained that the newspaper account 

 was perfectly correct. He found that the extraordinary abundance of 



