2 BULLETIN 723^ U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGEICULTUEE, 



the next fcAV years several additional articles dealing with the 

 problem caused by the pest in German East Africa appeared. In 

 lOOO' D. T. Fullaway (5) published an account of the pink boll worm 

 and its relation to cotton culture in the Hawaiian Islands, stating 

 that it appeared to have been introduced from India within a very 

 few years. 



Only a few more or less technical papers were published from 

 1909 to 1913. Since the latter date a considerable literature has been 

 built up, consisting largely of papers emanating from Egypt, where 

 the pest has attracted increasing attention. 



ORIGINAL HOME. 



The original home of the pink bollworm is probably India and 

 possibly Southern Asia generally, and its original host plants were 

 the wild and cultivated cottons of that region. If this natural range 

 of the insect extended to Africa it must have been limited to Central 

 Africa and at least it did not extend to the Nile Valley region where 

 cotton has been an important cultivated crop for a century or more. 

 The occurrence of the insect in Egypt is apparently traced definitely 

 to large shipments of seed cotton or imperfectly ginned cotton from 

 India in 1906-7, and the spread of the insect from the points in the 

 lower Delta near Alexandria, where this cotton was sent for regin- 

 ning, throughout the Delta, and ultimately throughout Egypt, is so 

 circumstantial as to leave no doubt as to the entry of the insect at 

 that time into Egj^pt. With the first occurrence of the insect in 

 Egypt it was confused more or less with other insects commonly 

 found in cotton bolls in that country, and this confusion led to a 

 statement by Dudgeon (4) that this insect had probably been in 

 Egypt for many years. The careful investigation of the situation 

 and determination of original points of infestation and spread by 

 expert entomologists in the employ of the British and Egyptian Gov- 

 ernments have fully disproved this early surmise and pointed out the 

 circumstantial introduction of the insect into Egypt as noted. 



As already noted, the pink bollworm has been recorded as a cotton 

 pest in India since 1842, and the original report made by the Superin- 

 tendent of the Government Cotton Plantation at Broach, India, is 

 of sufficient importance to be given in full, as follows : 



The inclosed is an insect which was very destructive to the American cotton 

 which was sown here (Broach) on light alluvial soil. The egg is deposited 

 in the germen at the time of flowering, and the larva feeds upon the cotton seed 

 until the pod is about to burst, a little previous to which time it has opened 

 a round hole in the side of the pod for air, and at which to make an exit at 

 its own convenience, dropping on the ground, which it penetrates about an 

 inch, and winds a thin web in which it remains during -the aurelia state. Curi- 

 ous enough, the cotton on the black soil was not touched by it. The native 

 cotton is sometimes affected by it. 



