130 
PARASITES OF GIPSY AND BROWN-TAIL MOTHS. 
The slopes of the higher mountains were fairly well forested and a 
larger variety of trees and shrubs thrived than on the lower elevations. 
Over much of the country the soil was either too dry or too scanty or 
both to permit of cultivation, even in a land so densely populated by so 
thrifty a race, and here were found occasional thickets of scrub oak, 
apparently of a deciduous species, which sometimes reached the 
dignity of a small tree. For the most part such country was covered 
with a scanty growth which would be called chapparal in some of our 
States, composed of a variety of uninviting looking shrubs, judging 
them from the probable viewpoint of a gipsy-moth caterpillar in 
search of food. Taken altogether, the country may more aptly be 
compared with southern California than with, any other part of the 
United States. 
It seemed to the visitor that if the gipsy moth were to be found in 
any portion of this region it would most likely be within the rich and 
well-watered bottom lands, where occasional hedges, or rows and 
groups of large trees in considerable variety, seemed to offer fairly 
acceptable conditions for its existence. But to his surprise and 
amazement he was assured by M. Dillon that it was from the chapparal 
covered, arid, and uncultivated elevations that most of the enormous 
quantities of caterpillars had been collected. In support of this asser- 
tion, after the visitor had searched in vain in what would be the most 
likely situations in Massachusetts for the concealment of egg masses, 
pupal shells, or molted skins, M. Dillon proceeded to turn over a few 
loose stones among those which fairly covered the ground, and thereby 
disclosed sufficient indication of the presence of the moth in fair 
abundance to convince the most skeptical. In this particular 
locality in the vicinity of the little provencal town of Meoun, in a 
thicket of deciduous oak surrounding and concealing the ruins of an 
ancient chapel, there were sufficient egg masses of the moth to repre- 
sent a fair degree of infestation, but eggs, pupal shells, and molted 
larval skins were all so completely hidden as to evade completely the 
eyes of one who had been trained to look for first evidences in shel- 
tered places on the bark or in the knot holes and hollow trunks of 
trees. 
As a .matter of fact, as was abundantly evidenced by that day's 
experiences, as well as of the several days which followed, the gipsy 
moth departed most materially from its characteristic habits in the 
cooler, better watered and forested localities in which it is present as a 
pest in America. Instead of being a typically arboreal insect, it is 
rather terrestrial, and thereby becomes subjected to a variety of nat- 
ural enemies to which it is practically immune so long as it remains 
arboreal, In the course of the several years past a variety of species 
of the larger European Carabidas has been studied at the laboratory 
for the purpose of determining their availability and probable worth 
