40O COTTON 



" ver de la capsule" or " dud el luz," in Egypt is 

 identical with one of the species which is destructive to 

 cotton in India, and is the larva or caterpillar of a night 

 flying moth. It has received its common name from the 

 habit it possesses of boring into and consuming the 

 contents of cotton bolls or seed capsules. Although the 

 injury effected is somewhat similar to that caused by 

 the American boll worm (Chloridea obsoleta, Fabr = 

 Heliothis armigera, auctorum), the Egyptian and Indian 

 insect referred to here enters the boll completely, and 

 lives within it for a considerable time, whereas the 

 American insect lives for the most part outside. The 

 remedial treatments, therefore, to be applied to the two 

 species are dissimilar. 



In appearance the two insects are quite different 

 through all their stages. It may be mentioned that the 

 American boll worm occurs also in Egypt, but is rare, 

 and has never established itself as a serious menace to 

 crops. 



The zoological position of the Egyptian boll worm is 

 in the family Noctuidae, sub-family Acontianae; and the 

 genus E arias to which it belongs is included as an 

 aberrant one, for which reason it has been referred by 

 various authors to the families Tortricidae and Arctiadae 

 in accordance with the presence of certain characters 

 peculiar to those families. 



From the form of the cocoon it would appear to be 

 allied to some insects included in the Noctuid sub-family 

 of Sarrothripinae and the Arctiad sub-family Nolianae. 

 Considerable confusion has been caused by the separation, 

 by Boisduval himself, of the Egyptian insect under the 

 name of Eriophaga gossypiana from his species Tortrlv 

 insulana and Earias siliquana from Madagascar, but later 

 authorities are agreed regarding the identity of all as 

 one species under the oldest specific name of insulana 

 in Hubner's genus Earias, which was described in 1818, 

 and of which E. fabia, Stoll., is the type. 



The following synonymy is taken from that appearing 

 in Sir George Hampson's catalogue of the Lcpldoptera 

 phalsense, with a few additional references from local" 

 publications : 



