INSECT PESTS OF DATES IN MESOPOTAMIA. 289 



The larva of E. cautella not only eats ripe dates which have fallen to the ground, 

 but also the small " hashaf " dates which have become hard and withered owing 

 to the attacks of the Gelechiid moth (see below) while they were half grown. 



According to Smyth the life-history from egg to adult occupies five weeks in 

 summer at Smyrna ; in April, May and June about 48 days. Chittenden says 

 that this species has a wide distribution in Europe, Asia, North Africa and North 

 and South America ; it was originally described from Ceylon. 



It has been recorded as attacking pomegranates, pears, cotton cake, cacao beans, 

 gall-nuts, flax-seed meal, tonka beans, walnuts, pecan nuts, pea-nuts, figs, pearl 

 hominy, dried moths (specimens), stored corn, asparagus berries, white rice, 

 chick pea, zizyphus berries, etc. 



Chittenden and Smyth's Bulletin should be consulted for details of the life-history 

 of this pest, and for an account of the damage it does to stored figs. Buckler 

 described its life-history (under the name Ephestia passidella) in 1882. 



It is parasitised in Egypt by Habrobracon kitcheneri, Dudgeon & Gough. 



Ephestia sp. ? 



Gough (1917) describes the Hfe-history of an Ephestia which is not identified but 

 difiers from E. cautella and E. calidella. This larva is a pest of fallen and harvested 

 dates in the Dakhlah and Khargeh oases, which he in the desert west of the Nile. The 

 life-history is given as follows. The female lays as many as 190 eggs in 24 hours, 

 and this is not the full number ; the eggs are deposited in ones and twos on the 

 surface of the dates after they have fallen or been gathered. The larvae wander 

 about and are not able to entei? Hving dates, a point in which they difier from the 

 larva of E. calidella. They generally enter a stored date by the calyx end, and 

 take up their abode in the space between the flesh and the stone. After feeding 

 for a minimum of 20 days, during which no silk is spun, the larvae emerge from the 

 date and wander about, leaving a silk thread behind them ; they wander for two 

 days, leaving their thread on all the dates over which they pass, and then spin a 

 cocoon in some convenient corner. The minimum fife period from egg to adult 

 is 25 days in August, 27 in September, and 38 in October, in Egypt. The species 

 passes the mnter in the larval stage. The adult moths are crepuscular and 

 nocturnal, and never fly far. 



Gough suggests that arrangements should be made for marketing the dates 

 in two grades, and that the first grade should be treated with SO2 after they are 

 packed ; the second grade should be pressed, a process in which many of the larvae 

 are crushed. He also speaks of the employment of moth-proof receptacles. I 

 imagine that it wiU be some years before the inhabitants of these desert oases use 

 either moth-proof receptacles or sulphur fumigation, but they can probably be 

 induced to gather up their wind-falls and give them to their cattle to eat. 



Subfamily Galleriinae. 



Arenipses sabella, Hampson. 



The larva of this species is known to eat stored dates, to which so far as we know 

 it is confined ; in this respect it differs from Ephestia spp., which are pests of the 



