370 



NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



European Bombycid, "the gypsy -moth," Ocneria dispar — of the 

 probability of its entering New York and spreading over adjoining 

 States — and of the efforts being made, under the direction of the 

 Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, for its extermination while 

 within the limited locality of the northeastern part of the State, where 

 it is at present confined. 



This is the fourth year of active operations against this insect under 

 annual appropriations by the State Legislature, which have now 

 amounted in the aggregate to $275,000.* 



In June last an invitation was extended to me by the committee of 

 the State Board of Agriculture to visit the infested district in com- 

 pany with the State Entomologists of adjoining States, for the purpose 

 of inspecting the work of the committee, and to offer such suggestions 

 or criticisms as it might be thought proper to make. 



Every facility was afforded for thorough examination, such as wit- 

 nessing the field operations for spraying, kerosening and burning rocky 

 and waste places; banding and liming trees for preventing the ascent 

 of the caterpillars ; personal inspection of the present condition in 

 most of the twenty towns in which the insect has occurred; the ex- 

 perimental work being conducted at the Insectary at Amherst, in test- 

 ing the susceptibility of the larvae to various insecticides, and the study 

 of the life-history of the insect and its habits; the method of record- 

 ing by the ofiice staff the field observations made by the force of nearly 

 two hundred employees; the various instruments and appliances used in 

 the field-work, with the manner of their use, etc., etc. 



The inspection was very satisfactory and gratifying and at the same 

 time instructive, as showing what may be done in arresting insect 

 depredations, when the task would seem almost a hopeless one. I had 

 not expected to find that such progress had been made toward the 

 extermination of the myriads of the notorious gypsy-moth. It was a 

 surprise to me that in the brief space of three years, the fearful rav- 

 ages of the insect, as described to me and as pictured in photographs, 

 could have been reduced to such a degree of comparative harmlessness, 

 that to the ordinary observer no indication of its presence was visible; 

 and in a ride of an entire day through several of " the worst infested 

 towns," including a visit to localities which had been frightfully 

 scourged, not a single example of the larva could be found by me, 

 although diligent search for it was made. 



How a work of such magnitude - extending over two hundred 

 square miles, with the insect so abundant that in one locality the entire 



* Including the two following years, 1894 and 1895, the appropriations have reached $'j25,CO0. 



