52 



Australia upon our cultivated experimental cotton plots at Hawkesbury 

 College, and has also been recorded from Moree, New South Wales, feeding 

 upon the " wild cotton bush" (Hibiscus sp.), and was recorded by me under 

 the name of Farias fabia. 



This moth, whose caterpillar has very similar habits to the American Boll 

 Weevil, bores into the small cotton bolls when they are well formed, and 

 through the injury causes the bolls to fall off without developing. This 

 moth, with such habits, is a very difficult pest to deal with, particularly in 

 a crop like cotton ; and if ever cotton is grown commercially in Australia, it 

 will be a pest we will have to consider. 



There are several very destructive cut-worms that do damage to cotton. 

 Among the worst is the cosmopolitan Noctuid Moth (Agrotis ypsilon), 

 also a pest on field crops in Australia. The caterpillars come out and 

 feed upon the " burslam," a cultivated clover which is grown in plots 

 among the cotton, and then from this attacks the foliage of the cotton 

 plant. Labour is so cheap that this is partly controlled by hand-picking the 

 caterpillars and destroying them. Another cosmopolitan cut-worm is 

 Prodenia littoralis, which, however, lays its eggs in clusters upon the leaves, 

 so that, taken in time, large quantities can be hand-picked before they hatch 

 out, and children are employed for this work. Another similar moth, but 

 smaller, is Caradrina (Agrotis) exigua, which also damages the foliage. 

 Though all the latter do a good deal of damage at times, the cotton boll 

 worm mentioned first is by far the worst pest, and was estimated to have 

 destroyed 1,000,000 worth of cotton in Egypt in 1904. 



Two other cotton pests are a small plant bug (Oxycarenus Tii/alinepennis) 

 and the cotton aphis (Aphis gossypii), which suck up the sap and damage the 

 leaves. 



The fruit industry is not important about Cairo, but a certain amount is 

 grown in a more or less irregular manner. Where oranges are grown in the 

 gardens they are very subject to infestation by the Round Scale (Aspidiotus 

 fici), which appears to be the worst scale insect here ; on the other hand 

 there is no Red Scale, though Aspidiotus auranti is so common in Cyprus, 

 and must have been imported over and over again with oranges from that 

 island. It is known in Egypt as the " Red-spotted Scale." 



Among other scale insects, Asterolecanium pustulans is found upon many 

 trees, but is chiefly a pest upon figs. Icerya purchasi, the Cottony Cushion 

 Scale, is established there, but Icerya aegyptica is the great garden pest 

 'among all the mealy bugs. 



One of the worst wood-boring beetles that damage the shade trees (Acacia 

 lebbek) planted along the street is the " Lebbek " (Xy&trocera globosa), I 

 also noted several curious gall-making Psyllids upon the shrubs. 



The collections at the entomological laboratory were carefully examined for 

 specimens of fruit-flies, but though there are some specimens of Dacus 

 lonqistilis in the British Museum said to have come from Egypt, Mr, 

 Willcocks has never obtained the flies here. I, however, obtained a fine 

 series of Ceratitis capitata, our introduced pest, bred from infested oranges, 

 obtained in Cairo. This is the first record of the Mediterranean fruit-fly 

 from this part of Africa, though it is well known in the north-west and 

 south. 



At the School of Agriculture I met Dr. Fletcher, the Director, who gave 

 me some information about the institution, which is run by the Government, 

 and has a large teaching staff. One of the most important stations in Egypt 

 is the Wellcome Research Laboratories, established some years ago in the 



