112 



THE GYPSY MOTH. 



At the height of the caterpillar plague in Medford, it is 

 said that it was almost impossible for people going through 

 the streets leadins^ to the Glenwood station of the Medford 

 branch railroad to avoid carrying caterpillars which dropped 

 down upon their clothing from the wayside trees. (See the 

 statement of Mr. Sylvester Lacy on page 17.) As the rail- 

 road ran only from Medford to Boston, there was not as 

 much danger of the caterpillars being transported to a dis- 

 tance by means of the luggage and clothing of passengers 

 as there would have been had the railroad passed through 

 Medford to other parts of the State or to other States. 

 Nevertheless, during 1888, 1889 and 1890 very many cater- 

 pillars undoubtedly were carried in this way not only to 

 Boston but to other parts of the State. Even in 1891 cater- 

 pillars were thus frequently carried. An agent of the Board 

 of Agriculture stated to the writer that in 1891 he took a 

 gT}3sy-moth caterpillar from the cloak of a lady standing in 

 front of the ticket office in the western division station of 

 the Boston & Maine Railroad in Boston. The lady had 

 come from Medford and had just bought a ticket for North- 

 ampton, a city in the Connecticut valley. Had the cater- 

 pillar not been removed from her cloak, it might have been 

 carried a long distance, or if left upon the cars it might have 

 escaped observation, dropping otF eventually at some point 

 along the road. If such cases have frequently occurred the 

 question at once arises, why have not moth colonies been 

 formed far and wide? While at first sight it would seem 

 probable that they have been thus formed, yet upon con- 

 sideration it is seen that the carriage of caterpillars in this 

 way to a distance is not necessarily dangerous. The farther 

 a caterpillar is carried from others of its kind the less be- 

 comes the probability of its reproduction. The female moth 

 does not fly. With favoring winds in open country the male 

 can find the female, by means of his sensory organs, at a 

 distance of about half a mile. The change of cars which was 

 necessary in Boston, and the radiation of the railroads to the 

 north, east, south and west, served to decrease the chances 

 of propagation, for the farther a caterpillar was carried from 

 Boston the greater became the distance which separated it, 

 not only from the infested region, but from other lines of 



