REPORT OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST 



371 



side of a house was so closely covered with the caterpillars that the 

 point of a pencil could not be thrust among them without touching 

 them — could have been accomplished, was an enigma to me, until 

 the means by which it was done had been shown and explained. 



The only suggestions that occurred to me to offer to the committee 

 in response to their request, were these two: Now that the mechanical 

 details of field-work were rapidly diminishing with the steady reduc- 

 tion of the insect, there was both the greater need and the opportunity 

 of such scientific work as might serve to complete the labors of the 

 committee and present the result in form that would render it avail- 

 able for future use whenever the necessity might arise for a resort to 

 similar methods in other insect invasions hereafter. A volume or two, 

 which should treat exhaustively of the gypsy-moth and the methods 

 employed for its extermination, might be another contribution to 

 natural science, which would rank with those which Massachusetts had 

 already made. 



It was also recommended that at this stage of the committee's work, 

 the cultivation of the parasites of the gypsy-moth (of which about a 

 score of native ones are already known) be entered upon and conducted 

 with all the knowledge and skill that could be brought to bear upon it. 



A plan for the artificial rearing proposed was suggested, embracing 

 in brief these points : The entire collection of the pupae for this year, 

 which might amount to twenty thousand, should be preserved, placed 

 in suitable cases, and kept, through cold storage, from giving out their 

 parasites until caterpillars of suitable age and reared from eggs gath- 

 ered for the purpose, could be inclosed with them to receive the entire 

 parasitic oviposition. The parasitized caterpillars should be properly 

 guarded until their pupation, when the parasites that they would dis- 

 close within the cases should have a caterpillar supply in readiness for 

 them. This round could be repeated as long as there seemed to be the 

 necessity for it and the parasites could be obtained. 



By the above method, or by some modification of it, it would seem 

 that an actual extermination of the insect can be effected, and possibly 

 in no other way. 



In view of what has already been accomplished, there is abundant 

 reason for a continuance of the appropriations by the Legislatuie of 

 Massachusetts until the desired extermination is secured, or until the 

 insect shall have been reduced to entire harmlessness and in position 

 never again to develop in injurious numbers or to invade other States. 

 Knowing as we do, the frightful ravages of the gypsy-moth in the 

 past, and the certainty that, if left to itself, its natural multiplication 



