278 



THE GYPSY MOTH. 



reported that caterpillars of this species had occasioned the 

 death of children who had ^aten strawberries ujDon which 

 these caterpillars had rested, and that, as a consequence, the 

 sale of strawberries had been prohibited in certain regions. 

 It did not seem possible that the story of the death of the 

 children from this cause could be true, or even that any 

 derangement of the digestive system could have occurred. 

 To test the statement, M. Bazin put four gypsy moth cater- 

 pillars in a wide-mouthed bottle with twelve strawberries 

 and a strawberry leaf. At the end of twenty-four hours they 

 had eaten a very little of the leaf and also a little of the 

 strawberries, but had not eaten them with the avidity that 

 they do other kinds of food. They had been in contact with 

 the strawberries more completely, however, than they would 

 if they had been at liberty, for they had crawled over the 

 berries again and again, and, if they had the power to impart 

 to them any injurious properties by contact, they must have 

 done so under these conditions. M. Bazin then ate four of 

 these strawberries, and, a little later, feeling no inconvenience 

 from these, ate the remaining eight, without the sKghtest 

 disturbance in the stomach. As the opinion prevailed more 

 or less widely that cows and other animals that had eaten 

 these caterpillars had been made sick, he caused a dog to 

 swallow some of them, but the animal gave no indication of 

 inconvenience. 



In reviewing Dr. E. L. Taschenberg's "Entomologie fiir 

 Gartner," etc., in the *'Stettiner Entomologische Zeitung," 

 Yol. XXXII, page 167, 1871, Dr. Dohruj'^in speaking of 

 the gypsy moth, says that from his experience the active 

 caterpillars, after escaping from the eggs, can crawl about 

 for eight or ten days without food. He states that on ]May 

 3, 1854, he was in Glogau, and noticed gypsy moth cater- 

 pillars crawling on his own clothing as well as on that of 

 others. Under the roof of the shed, near which they sat, 

 thousands of caterpillars which had hatched that day were 

 crawling about. They had let themselves down by threads, 

 and thus dropped upon the clothes of the people. Threads 

 from many more caterpillars had become entangled into long 

 chains, which waved in the almost imperceptible breeze, and 

 from which hung, so far as he could judge, about a thousand 



