Hie Insects of the Past Year and Progress in Insect Studies. 235 



conditions presented, have continued to increase from that time 

 onward, until they have become thoroughly naturalized. Fortunately, 

 the species is single-brooded; the female does not deposit many eggs, 

 and its heavy abdomen disinclines it to extended flight. Hence it is, 

 that although twenty years have passed since its colonization, the area 

 of distribution which it has appropriated and now holds, is limited to 

 an ellipse of about a mile and a half by a half-mile in extent, in Med- 

 ford, a few miles northwardly of Boston. But within this area, it 

 appears, from the report of Professor C. H. Feruald, entomologist of 

 the Massachusetts Agricultural College and of the Hatch Experiment 

 Station, to have displayed a remarkable voracity. In the special 

 bulletin of the station for November, 1889, devoted to the insect, 

 it is said to have " multiplied to such an extent as to cause the entire 

 destruction of the fruit crop and also to defoliate the shade trees in 

 the infested region " — that above named. That an insect capable of 

 such destructiveness, and with such an European history attached to 

 it, should be promptly met and exterminated while practicable in its 

 present limited area of occupation, will be conceded by all. It 

 is reported by the press that an appropriation from the State 

 Legislature has been asked for the purpose. Professor Fernald 

 expresses his confident belief that « if every tree and shrub in the 

 infested region in Medford be thoroughly showered with Paris green 

 m water, soon after the hatching of the eggs in the spring, the young 

 caterpillars will surely be destroyed; and if any escape, it will be 

 because of some neglect or ignorance in the use of the insecticide." 

 He is not positive that the insects " can be exterminated in a single 

 year, but entertains no doubt but that, if the work of showering be 

 continued during the months of April and May for two or three years, 

 nnder competent direction, they may be entirely destroyed."* 



Passing now to another division of my paper, may I speak briefly of 

 . P r °g r ess being made in insect studies, particularly as they relate 

 ^ the control of insect depredations? 

 After having been laboring for many years in a field of study i 



^hich the forms 



requiring 



inuner >u- 



an all the other classes of the animal kingdom combined — 

 ^ lth but few, perhaps ten or twelve co-laborers throughout the 

 J!!^__^tates, and with results not always meeting the demand 



