130 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 5 



E. A. ScHWARz: Many years ago, when the cotton worm moth 

 investigation was carried on with vigor the theory prevailed that the 

 moths hibernated within the cotton belt of the United States, Prof. 

 A. R. Grote, alone, maintaining the opposite view. During the 

 winter of 1879-80 I had been sent on a mission to find hibernating 

 cotton moths or their chrysalids. I went throughout the whole width 

 of the cotton belt, even extending my trip to the Bahama Islands 

 without finding any trace of hibernating moths or chrysalids. Nor 

 has anyone else been able to find any hibernating cotton moths within 

 the United States. In short Professor Grote's opinion has now been 

 generally accepted: viz., that the cotton moth comes to us from 

 some part of tropical America, and probably from some part of Brazil. 

 Of later years I have been in Cuba where cotton is indigenous, but 

 not cultivated to any extent. Here the boll weevil and the cotton 

 staiiiers (Dysdercus) are common enough, but the larva of Alabama 

 argillacea is extremely rare and only on one spot could it be collected 

 in moderate numbers: viz., on the hills overlooking the little watering 

 place of Cojimar where a small cotton patch has been planted as an 

 experiment. Subsequently I visited the eastern part of Guatemala 

 where the cultivation of cotton is carried on in a very limited scale 

 without finding the caterpillars; nor did I find any trace of them on 

 the isolated cotton trees at Tampico and Victoria, Tamaulipas. 

 The few perennial cotton trees to be found along the Canal Zone, 

 Panama, were also free from the caterpillar. The Mexican cotton 

 belt at Torreon seems to be protected from the invasion of the cotton 

 moth by its arid climate, and that, the same region is free from the 

 cotton .boll weevil, is, in my opinion, only due to its isolation, the 

 nearest weevil infested region being several hundred miles distant. 



The migration of the cotton moth north of the cotton belt in the 

 United States has years ago been a familiar sight and numerous ref- 

 erences thereto can be found in our literature of about 30 to 35 years 

 ago. At that time the theory prevailed that the cotton moth had 

 some other food plant within the northern states. This theory has 

 long since been abandoned and the northward flight of the cotton 

 moth whenever it occurs, is a most remarkable and unique phenomenon 

 in the domain of entomology. In former years very little attention 

 was paid to the duration of such flights but in the present year the 

 duration of the flight has been watched at Washington, D. C. It 

 extended from September 19th to October 19th as will be more fully 

 found to be published in the forthcoming number of Proc. Ent. Soc. 

 Wash. 



President F. L. Washburn : An>i}hing else on this paper? 



H. T. Fernald: I simply wish to report that in Massachusetts 



