98 PARASITES OF GIPSY AND BROWN-TAIL MOTHS. 
work along even more energetic lines than in the past indicates suffi- 
ciently well the character of the decision finally reached. 
This is not the place for, nor are the writers prepared to enter 
into, a discussion of the caterpillar diseases of the gipsy moth and 
the brown-tail moth, but it is perhaps not out of place to recount 
some of the incidents which have been taken into consideration in 
the present instance. In this, as in many others similar in character, 
the brown-tail moth has largely been ignored, owing to its being 
generally considered as the lesser pest of the two. As frequently 
before, the work upon the brown-tail moth parasites, although 
pursued quite as actively as that upon the parasites of the gipsy 
moth, was relegated to a secondary position. 
Very little has been published concerning the gipsy-moth cater- 
pillar disease previously to 1907, when the junior author first had 
opportunity to familiarize himself with the situation at first hand. 
It was to him a novelty when, early in the summer of that year, 
wholesale destruction of the half-grown caterpillars was first noticed 
in numerous localities before they had succeeded in effecting the com- 
plete defoliation of the trees and shrubs upon which they were feeding. 
In all its essential characters the disease was similar to that which 
had swept over the army of tent caterpillars which were defoliating 
the apple and cherry trees in southern New Hampshire in 1898, 
as recounted in the bulletin upon the parasites of that insect, pub- 
lished as No. 5 in the Technical Series of the New Hampshire Agri- 
cultural Experiment Station. It was believed of this disease, at 
the time when these investigations were being conducted, that it 
was infectious, since the inhabitants of whole nests would all perish 
simultaneously. At the same time, its infectious or contagious 
nature was not established. 
On the supposition that the disease of the tent caterpillar was 
infectious, and that that of the gipsy-moth caterpillars was similar 
in character, it looked for a time as though the parasite work was 
destined to an untimely end through the destruction of the gipsy- 
moth caterpillars before the parasites had opportunity to establish 
themselves and increase to the point of efficacy. Neither was 
there anything observed during the summer of 1907 to render this 
supposition untenable, except (and from an economic standpoint the 
exception was one of grave importance) the fact that, taking the 
infested area as a whole, there was a tremendous increase in the 
number of egg masses of the gipsy moth in the fall of 1907 over the 
number which had been present the previous spring. 
There did not seem to be any particular reason why the disease 
should not increase in effectiveness as time passed on, however, and 
when in the spring of L908 myriads of caterpillars in the first stage- 
were found "wilting" in the forests in .Melrose, and when just a little 
