446 PROCEEDIiVGS OF THE THIRD ENTOMOLOGICAL MEETING 



Subsequent to this, Mr. Safdar Shah, L.Ag., Entomological Assist- 

 ant, North-West Frontier Province, wrote : — " In either case Rhogas 

 lefroyi has been found to parasitize Gelechia as well as Earias. It 

 appears that in the early part of the cotton season Earias is common 



with us, whilst in the latter part Gelechia " This experience 



accords w-ith ours at Pusa, where the bollworms E. fabia and E. 

 insvlana are present in larger numbers than Platyedra gossypiella in the 

 beginning of the cotton season from July to November, after which the 

 Pink worm is more in evidence and does most damage. Besides, in 

 India, in places where cotton is introduced for the first time, it becomes 

 heavily infested by the bollworms. In May 1909, Mr. E. E. Green, 

 Government Entomologist, Ceylon, wrote :— " We have recently, for 

 the first time, grown some plants of cotton, on our Peradeniya ex- 

 perimental station. No other cotton is or has been cultivated in the 

 place, yet the very first crop has been completely ruined by the Pink 



bollworm {Gelechia gossypiella) I have examined allied malvaceou,? 



plants {e.g., H. ahelmosclius) but have found no trace of infestation " 



A similar stage of affairs arose in Burma when cotton was grown there 

 for the first time, as Mr. F. G. Sly, Officiating Inspector-General of 

 Agriculture, wrote from Burma on the 22nd February 1905 :— " The 

 cotton had grown fairly well— a good show of plant, but nearly all 

 the bolls were destroyed. It flowered freely, formed many bolls, but 

 quite 75 per cent, of the bolls were destroyed. I presume that thi& 

 is bollworm V 



In the United Provinces P. gossypiella has come to be recognized as 

 the most serious pest to cotton and the Pusa experience warrants the 

 same conclusion. In the beginning Earias Jabia was thought to be res- 

 ponsible primarily for the loss to cotton suffered every year. But subse- 

 quent work in connection with Bollworms has brought out the fact 

 prominently that it is the Pink Bollworm which does the greatest amount 

 of damage. One fact that has been brought out very prominently by 

 the investigations for the past seven years is, that the Pink Bollworm. 

 is not so susceptible to the attack of parasites as are E. fabia and E. 

 insidana, although a Microbracon {? M. lejroyi) has been found parasi- 

 tizing Pink Bollworms both in cotton and in its alternative food-plant 

 Hibiscus abelmoschus, which has proved with us a very useful trap- 

 crop for Earias, but we have never found any Chalcididce parasitic 

 on the eggs, worms or cocoons of P. gossypiella, and this experience 



is corroborated by thai^Mr. E. E. Green in Ceylon, who wrote—" I 



have been keeping this insect under observation for many months, and 



have not yet raised a single parasite from it " {in litt., 4th November 



1909). Last year (1918), however, Bethylid parasites (Plate 79) were 



