540 
JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 
[Vol. 16 
of Entomology Laboratory at Melrose Highlands, Mass., has long been 
attended with considerable difficulty. With those species which can 
be obtained safely in the hibernating stage the problem is comparatively 
simple, but with others the summer broods have to be collected as 
either they use hibernating hosts which would be dangerous to import 
or they can only be obtained in satisfactory numbers during the summer. 
Some of these species may be handled best by collecting and shipping 
the parasitized gipsy moth larvae while with others we collect the 
cocoons or the puparia. To insure safe arrival the host larvae must be 
kept alive until the parasites issue and the parasite adults must be 
prevented from emerging en route. In either case refrigeration is 
necessary for without it the host larvae will only live for a short time 
and as the pupal stage of the summer broods of parasites is short, the 
adults will emerge and die long before they reach their destination. 
The successful importation of parasites is therefore dependent upon 
proper refrigeration en route. This can be obtained for the trans-oceanic 
part of the route by having the boxes placed in the cold storage rooms 
of the vessels, but no such facilities are available on land. Our difficulty 
lay in getting suitable refrigeration for long overland shipping, partic¬ 
ularly for the shipments of parasites which were sent from Japan. As 
speed was a vital factor, all such shipments were sent by express. Al¬ 
though the company handles considerable amounts of perishable pro¬ 
duce it does not own any small refrigerators as all of these belong to the 
individual shippers. At times it is possible for the company to borrow 
one of these small refrigerators but it is not certain that one will be 
available when needed. Therefore we were compelled to secure some 
of our own to insure that they would be at hand to receive our ship¬ 
ments. 
Information about the various types of small refrigerators in use was 
obtained. Of these, the type used in shipping ice cream appeared to 
be the best for our purposes. Its weight wffien iced was not excessive 
and as it is in general use express employees are familiar with it and 
would be almost certain to give one the proper attention. We had to 
avoid the danger of having the water from the melting ice penetrate 
to the parasites, which might result if the refrigerators were placed in 
any position but upright. With the ice cream shipping tubs there 
would be small danger of this owing to their shape and to the fact that 
they are familiar objects. 
Refrigerators of a ten gallon capacity were obtained, these consisted 
of heavy metal cans eleven inches in diameter and twenty-four inches 
