﻿2 BULLETIN 1397, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGEICULTUEE 



in the next few years several additional articles dealing with the 

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

 1909 D. T. Fullaway (8) 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 " com- 

 paratively recent " 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. This conclusion, 

 published by the writer (IS) in an earlier bulletin on this subject, 

 was also announced by Marlatt (15) at about the same time, after a 

 more exhaustive discussion of the evidence available. If this nat- 

 ural 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 im- 

 perfectly 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 reginning, throughout the Delta, and ulti- 

 mately throughout Egypt, is so well confirmed by circumstantial 

 evidence as to leave no doubt as to the entry of the insect at that time 

 into Egypt. 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 Dud- 

 geon {6) 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 Egyj^tian Governments have fully 

 dis^jroved this early sui-mise and pointed out the real manner of in- 

 troduction of the insect into Egypt. 



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

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

 intendent 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 cot- 

 ton which was sown liere (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. 



The significant thing in the paragraph is the statement that the 

 insect was very destructive to the American cotton and that " fiative 

 cotton is sometimes afected hy it.'''' The fact that the American cot- 

 ton was much more affected than the native varieties is in accord 



