April, '12] COTTON MOTH DISCUSSION 129 



explained, however, on the pecuhar structure of the wing scales, which 

 are of such a nature as not to be easily rubbed off, as in most moths. 



Franklin Sherman, Jr. : Our first outbreak of it in North Carolina 

 was reported from the 10th to the 15th of August, northeast of Raleigh, 

 and during the two weeks following that time, from the middle to the 

 last of August, we had a dozen reports of it from that section of the 

 State. Two weeks later we got a lot from the cotton growing section 

 of North Carolina, so that during the season we had it practically 

 through all of our cotton growing sections. During eleven years this 

 is the only year in which we have had general destruction by the 

 cotton worm in North Carolina. In the fall of 1905 there was an out- 

 break in two or three counties in the east central portion of the State. 



Cornelia F. Kephart: Mr. President, it might be interesting 

 to you to know that up in New Hampshire we had two correspondents 

 send in specimens of this insect, and they claimed they were flocking 

 around in great numbers. 



H. A. Surface: Mr. President, I was going to say, as a matter of 

 record, that there was quite a flight of these insects northward, I 

 should say, that from the twentieth of September until the second or 

 third of October they were reported throughout Pennsylvania, as one 

 writer said, "countless multitudes, so as to fill the air as by a snow 

 storm," and thousands were sometimes found under a single electric 

 light, and we had them sent to us from almost every county in Pennsyl- 

 vania. 



B. P. Mann: Gentlemen, in looking around, I think I am the 

 only entomologist present connected with the investigation carried on 

 by the United States Department of Agriculture in the early days, 

 and at that time, from 1876 to 1881, we had a little flight of the cotton 

 moth exactly in the same way as we had this year. The air was so 

 full that finally we got to making observations on the food of the cotton 

 moth, and we didn't pay any attention to the moth itself. It was 

 more directed to finding out the food plant of the cotton moth outside 

 of the cotton belt. Well, that went on for years. There were two 

 parties, one led by Dr. C. V. Riley, who advocated the theorj^ that 

 the cotton moth was a native of the United States and had a food 

 plant outside of the cotton belt, and the other party led by Prof. A. R. 

 Grote, who contended that the cotton moth was not a native of the 

 United States and that it had never hibernated in the United States. 

 In the course of time, Professor Grote proved to be exactly correct. 

 The cotton moth never hibernates in the United States and never 

 has any other food product to feed upon outside of the cotton plant. 

 Well, that makes the Northern flight of the cotton moth much more 

 interesting than we ever thought. 



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