86 



THE GYPSY MOTH. 



tion of the metropolitan park reservation known as the 

 Middlesex Fells. Others were found in the Saugus woods. 

 In some of the localities where the moth appeared in num- 

 bers in the woods the injury extended over from one to 

 three acres, leaving the trees as bare as in winter. 



Wherever the forest was defoliated in this manner the 

 infested trees presented from a distance the appearance of 

 having been killed by fire. These reddish patches on the 

 hillsides stood out strongly in contrast with the green of the 

 summer foliage by which they were surrounded. On enter- 

 ing one of these infested spots during the time when the 

 caterpillars were feeding, one was immediately struck b}^ the 

 rustling sound caused by their movements and the falling of 

 their droppings and the bits of foliage which they were con- 

 tinually cutting from the leaves. A little later in the season, 

 during the warmer part of the day, the male moths fluttered 

 in swarms about the trees while the white females were scat- 

 tered over the trunks and branches of trees and upon the dry 

 leaves on the ground. 



Nearly all species of trees and most herbaceous plants in 

 this badly infested woodland were stripped by the caterpil- 

 lars. In some places they ate the foliage of the pines, both 

 young and old. Some of these trees appear now to be dy- 

 ing. But on account of the unusually rapid development of 

 the moths this season, their consequent maturing and ces- 

 sation of feeding, the trees were not continually stripped 

 throughout the summer ; therefore the deciduous trees began 

 to throw out new foliage late in July and early in August, 

 when the female moths were laying their eggs. This rapid 

 development of the moths during the past season appears to 

 be unprecedented in this country so far as can be ascertained. 

 As the probable result, a second brood of the moths appeared 

 in one locality in Woburn. Young caterpillars were found 

 leaving the egg-clusters in the first weeks of September. 

 As the summer waned, many localities in the woods were 

 found where the egg-clusters of the moth were quite numer- 

 ous, bidding fair, if not destroyed, to produce a brood of 

 caterpillars during 1896 which may prove even more de- 

 structive than those of the present season. 



This condition of afiairs fulfilled the predictions which the 



