Show THE GYPSY MOTH some singular facts about a deadly enemy to trea an carelessness the beat wu into mab where it now creates great havoc not so very long ago a scientific wiseacre of massachusetts who had never had the pleasure of meeting with a gypsy moth since the frivolous creature biad not journeyed into the old hay state at alie time according to the new york sun sent word to a friend in alie faraway far away land the home of the insect saying please send me a gypsy moth right away I 1 want to look at him I 1 want to stady him so alie friend who was an obedient clial went into liis garden and with no trouble caught a gypsy moth one of a largo band of moths who were encamped there and had eaten about everything in the neighborhood except the house and toughest part of the fence and he put him in a ven dilated box and mailed him to the entomologist tom in massachusetts the gypsy moth arrived safely at his destination and the scientific went to work with his jackknife jac knife at hi cage to disentomb him lie was so lively that he easily stood on his head and scraped his hind legs together in the air so that the wise man might know perhaps that lie was glad to know him lie was just as lively after he had been carved out of his mummy case but the entomologist was light fingered also and he expertly caught his visitor by liis and then went out on his veranda to scrutinize him in a strong light farough hii mag unifying glass hut alie gypsy moth was smarter than the scientific man evidently very much smarter and lie traveled over land and water several thousand miles to be stuck on a an and to make an entomological roman holiday lie bided his time and alien the learned man had flipped him over on his back holding him still by the tail but with a slightly slackened grip and was about to chuck his microscope down upon him presto lie suddenly gathered himself into a knot spasmodically yanked himself away from the glass blid down to the veranda floor and was off into the garden in a jiffy the scientific man gaped at him incredulously for an instant and then set off along alie garden walk and across the green sward treading down sweet peas and clover blossoms in a perfectly futile endeavor to recapture him that gypsy moth got entirely away and never came back and keen and sore was the disappointment of the entomologist thereat sore also has been the disappointment of the old bay state ever since the luckless escape of the gypsy moth took place a number of yeara ago but though he is gone he is by no mean forgotten the gypsy moth of the scientific man followed the biblical injunction multiply and replenish alio earth and tho point of this history is in the fact eliat that little incident by which the entomologist let go the tail feathers of his gypsy moth lias cost the state of massachusetts over two hundred thousand dollars in the ladt four years soon after the gypsy moth got away the bay state had to appoint a state commission whose business it was to go and find him together with liis progeny and the commission found him easily and in a large majority each year no v they keep on looking for and finding him in a steadily augmenting horde no trouble at all lie is always on deck last years work of the commission according to a springfield paper included the examination of four million trees and the destruction of forty six thousand one hundred egg clusters all belonging to the gypsy moth and over one million caterpillars now comments the same journal an appropriation of one hundred and sixty thousand dollars with which to find and fight the gypsy moth is asked and it is a choice between constant fight to the extermination and the loss on the other hand of something like one million dollars yearly by the ravages of the pest |