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advised showering the trees and shrubs with Paris green; and early in the following year the Gypsy Moth Commission, appointed by the government, was authorized to take up pumps and bellows. $25,000 was appropriated for the work, and later $25,000 more. Thus the extermination of the gypsy moth became a State affair. In April, 1891, the work was placed in the hands of the State Board of Agriculture, where it remained, and $50,000 more was appropriated, afterwards increased by $75,000. What this insect battle meant for the inhabitants of the infested districts may be seen from the following quotations from the rules and regulations of the Board: —
"All persons are forbidden by law to remove . . . the gypsy moth, its nests and eggs from one place to another . . . to remove from their present locality in the town of Medford, etc., any hay, manure, wood, bark, trees, rags, lumber or shrubbery of any kind without a written permit from the department . . . or in any way to imitate or erase the marks employed by this department to designate trees, fences, and buildings which are infested or have been cleaned. . . . All vehicles leaving the above-named districts may be stopped by the officers of the department and delayed until the contents have been sufficiently inspected to determine the fact that they are not liable to transmit the eggs or any other form of the insect. . . . . Notice is given that it will in some cases be necessary to remove boards of fences and buildings. . . . Damage done may be secured under Section 2, Chapter 210, Acts of 1871," etc.
These read like war documents. So do the accounts of the appointment of officers, the establishment of a centre of operations, the sorties of well-equipped troops, the valiant service they rendered, "inspecting every tree, shrub, wall, fence, pig-pen, hen-house, shed, house, and barn. Old stone walls were burned out with crude petroleum. Large tracts of land covered with brush were burned over, after the brush had been cut; and in some cases woodland was cut and burned over after the wood worth saving had been examined and removed." This "systematic egg gathering" took place in the spring. Comparatively little could be done after the hatching of the insects; but so thorough was the work that in June, 1892, Prof. Fernald, the entomological adviser of the Board, returned from a visit to the infested town, reporting, "I scarcely found an insect." Meanwhile, the insectary had prepared boxes containing cocoons, eggs, larvre, pupre, male and female moths, and sent them as object lessons to the various towns. By order of the government, these boxes were increased from twenty-four to one hundred and twenty-four. Illustrated "Danger" posters were also struck off, describing the pest, and these were put up in every post-office in the eastern part of the State. What would have been a national disaster has in all probability been arrested.
The gypsies will soon be forgotten, however, in the constant influx of new guests to the insectary. In the laboratory a large piece of cork stands full of recent arrivals, waiting to be registered, -butterflies and borers and downy moths, an aggressive looking beetle, a horned dragonfly, and a portly little bug carrying its antennæ like a pair of lances— as heterogeneous an assembly as ever gathered on the deck of a New York ferry-boat. After they have been identified they will be mounted in their places in the cabinet drawers. They come in the pockets of the collector, conveyed in pill boxes and small glass jars. The rapture of the scientist is in his eyes as he pulls them out for inspection. To him the earth teems with life. There are myriads of lives under a leaf, tens of myriads beneath a stone. Moss and bark he inquires into for eggs. The banks of streams, the shadows of gardens, he explores eagerly. With net and "killing bottle," he considers himself fairly equipped, disdaining the gayly painted "trap" upstairs, a lantern smeared with oily pictures of flowers.
In addition to the company on the cork, he has brought in a number of caterpillars. They go under the screens with their names on the doorplates. Here they are fed twice a day on whatever they fancy, and given a drink of
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