SEPTEMBER 27, 1918] 
certain insect relationships which will be noted 
below, that Africa is indicated as the original 
home of the ping bollworm. 
The support of this theory of African origin 
based on the fact that the only near relative 
of the pink bollworm, P. malvella Zeller, is 
known from Africa as well as Southern Eu- 
rope should be given very little weight, inas- 
much as a more accurate knowledge of the dis- 
tribution of this related insect may show it to 
range, as it probably does, throughout south- 
ern Asia in addition to its now known range 
in Africa and southern Europe. In fact, it 
would be most astonishing that an insect 
having a range already as wide as that indi- 
eated, should not occur also in contiguous 
Asia, and, furthermore, entomological collec- 
tions and explorations in Asia have not been 
made with any such thoroughness as to give 
this argument any substantial support. 
On the other hand, Fletcher (1917),* review- 
ing the pink bollworm situated in India, states 
that “ Gelechia gossypiella occurs throughout 
the plains of India, Burma and Ceylon, as a 
pest of cotton, serious in most localities, es- 
pecially in the United Provinces, Punjab, and 
the Northwest Frontier Provinces. In all dis- 
tricts exotic varieties seem to be most subject 
to attack.” He further notes that “ Gelechia 
gossypiella was first described from India in 
1842, and is probably endemic in India. It 
has since been introduced into other cotton- 
growing areas and has proven a serious pest, 
apparently worse than it is in India as a 
whole.” 
In this connection it is interesting to note 
that the record, as reported by Durrant,? in- 
dicates a wide distribution of the insect 
throughout southern Asia, including India, 
Ceylon Berma, Straits Settlements, Philip- 
pines, Japan (?) and Hawaii—records, most 
of them, antedating from eight to seventy 
years, the first report of the insect in Egypt. 
Looking at the question, also, from the 
standpoint of cotton culture in Egypt, if it 
is true, as has been so strongly urged,that this 
4 Fletcher, T. Bainbrigge, Rep. Proe. Sec. Ent. 
Meeting. Pusa., February, 1917, pp. 10, 111-14, 
1917. 
SCIENCE 
dll 
insect is of African origin, and reached India 
from Egypt, it must follow that during the 
last seventy-five or one hundred years, it has 
had ample opportunity to demonstrate in 
Egypt, throughout the whole period, its maxi- 
mum destructiveness. The record of the cot- 
ton crop in Egypt up to and subsequent to 
the first recognition of the pink bollworm in 
1911 certainly gives no support to the theory 
of Egyptian origin; on the other hand, the 
evidence of its recent entry into Egypt as 
given by Ballou® and others is circumstantial 
and practically determined, both as to time 
and place of introduction. Briefly, there were 
large importations of imperfectly ginned or of 
seed cotton from India in the years 1906 and 
1907. Much of this cotton was distributed to 
towns near Alexandria for ginning. The dis- 
covery of the pink bollworm in the Delta 
region in Egypt was in the lower Delta, in the 
vicinity of towns where this seed cotton went 
for ginning. It was first noted in 1911 at 
Foueh, and in the following year at four other 
points, three of which were very close to 
Foueh. The first substantial general field in- 
jury observed from this insect was in 1912 
near Alexandria. By the end of that year, 
1912, however, the insect was found pretty well 
throughout the Delta and also north of Cairo 
to a distance of a hundred miles or more, 
but in no case except the one field referred to 
was it abundant enough to do any material 
injury. The increase of the damage in Egypt 
by this insect from that period has been steady 
in spite of the enforcement of the most stren- 
uous field and other control operations. 
The possibility of the importation of this 
insect from India with a large quantity of 
cotton seed imported into Egypt in 1906-7 is 
perfectly patent in view of the known oc- 
currence of this insect in India for three 
quarters of a century. 
From the evidence, herein reviewed, it 
would seem to be well established that the na- 
tive home of the insect included India and 
perhaps other countries of southern Asia. If 
its natural range extended to Africa it must 
5 Ballou, H. A., Jour. Econ. Ent., Vol. XTI., pp. 
236-45, 1918. 
