I'KOCF.EDIXGS OF THE THIRD ENTOMOLOGICAL MEETING 493 



of the three modes of loss, and gives quite close results, 

 whether dealt with as seed cotton, or whether each item is 

 separately estimated and the totals added together. 



The total damage to the crop week for week in one field in 1917 

 was thus estimated as being about 11 per cent, at the end of August 

 increasing to about 19 per cent, by the end of the season. The average 

 damage for that field in 1917 was probably near 17 per cent., a figure 

 Ballou and 1 reached by a totally different method of calculation for 

 the year 1916 as an average for the Delta. The work on the 1918 crop 

 is now being carried out, but from figures received at the time of 

 writing (25th December 1918) the first picking in four fields calculated 

 for was only damaged to about 4 per cent. ; the second pickings 

 varied more than the first in respect of damage, the lowest of these 

 gi\-ing 8 per cent, and the highest 29 per cent. The actual damage 

 would be somewhere between 6 j^er cent, in the least damaged field 

 and 17 per cent, in the worst. All these figures are, however, still 

 provisional, and subject to checking. 



Work on the Pink Bollworm has in Egypt been done practically in 

 ignorance of what has been done elsewhere, especially as concerns all 

 work prior to 1916. Our Department of Agriculture was only recently 

 started and has not yet been developed. For this reason we have not 

 frec]uently quoted previous authors' results in our earlier papers, and 

 for the same reason all our statements have been made entirely on our 

 own observations. ,, 



Such a condition has its good and its bad sides. We have perhaps 

 started on hnes of investigation leading nowhere, which a little reading 

 would have helped us to avoid. It has on the other hand prevented 

 us taking anybody's results for granted, and has made us much more 

 sure on points where we claim knowledge. 



In 1911 the Pink Bollworm was considered to be a rare cotton insect 

 and rather a curiosity. There was then no old-established, sufficiently 

 complete collection of insects in Cairo, from which one could have 

 gathered the information that the rare insect was a probably new 

 importation. Such a collection now exists and is the creation and 

 property of the Entomological Section. Newly-introduced pests will 

 in futiu-e be hable to be recognized as such, at an earlier date, should 

 the misfortune happen that they evade our importation restrictions. 



In the autumn of 1912 it was fir.st recognized that the Pink Boll- 

 worm was probably a recent introduction, on account of a severe 

 outbreak at Abukir near Alexandria. 



In the early months of 1913 our first Plant Protection Law {Loi 

 No. 5 (hi 11 Mars 1913, sur la Protection des Planfes conire les Maladies 



