300 F. A. BUXTON. 



Banks (Journ. Ent. Zool. Claremont, vi, 1914) ; it is apparently impossible to feel 

 certain on this point. Mr. Hirst (1920) has re- described the species and figured 

 the penis and the palp of the female. 



This mite is a most serious pest of growing dates in all parts of Mesopotamia 

 which I visited. It was first noticed in early July, when immense numbers were found 

 spinning webs aU over the clusters of growing dates. These webs are of considerable 

 extent and stretch from date to date over the whole cluster ; dust becomes 

 entangled in the web and the dates beneath never ripen properly. At the time when 

 healthy dates are ripe the affected ones are discoloured and scaly, and as they 

 are scarcely fit to eat and quite unsaleable they are generally used as food for cattle 

 and horses. These diseased clusters are for some reason attractive to the wasp 

 Polistes hebraeus, which may constantly be seen hovering over them and crawling 

 on the surface of the webs. I was quite unable to find why the wasp acted in this 

 manner, but I should imagine that its doing so must be a factor in the spread of 

 the mites from tree to tree ; the wasp does not frequent the clusters of ripening 

 dates unless they are attacked by the mite. The disease is found on many varieties 

 of dates, especially the Khadhrawi, Dairi and Zehedi ; in 1918 it was a most serious 

 pest of the first of these, which is a widely grown date of superior quahty and was 

 not attacked by the Gelechiid moth. I have seen clusters of dates on trees of all 

 ages attacked by this mite, but it was always to be observed that its ravages did 

 not cause serious damage except to trees far from water or growing in ill-kept 

 unweeded gardens. It is not confined solely to such trees ; indeed I have seen 

 it on a Khadhrawi which was growing on the very margin of a tidal creek at Basra. 

 The disease is known to the Arabs as Toz, Trab, and Ajaj, all of which words mean 

 solely dust ; it is stated to come from Allah, but more immediately from the dust 

 of the roads. 



Other Insect Pests. 

 ^Mr. H. H. King informs me that in some years the migratory locust {Schistocerca 

 peregrina, Oliv.) eats all the leaves and fruit on date palms in the Sudan, and 

 Popenoe mentions that locusts are occasionally troublesome in California and 

 Arizona, and in Algeria. He gives no further information, but we may presume 

 that the adults of some species devour the dates on the tree. He makes some 

 even more indefinite remarks about ants and termites, and also mentions bees 

 and wasps. I have alluded above to the fact that Polistes hebraeus frequents 

 clusters of dates infested by the mite Oligonychus simplex, Banks. The Oriental 

 hornet {Vespa orientalis) never, I believe, attacks fruit on the trees except that 

 which has been already pecked by birds, but it devours the fruit exposed for sale 

 in the bazaars, and is so large and abundant that it must cause appreciable loss 

 in all parts of Mesopotamia in which dates are grown. 



Animal and Bird Pests. 

 Popenoe tells us that a horde of rats at Tempe, Arizona, once did great damage 

 to the date crop, and mentions that gophers and jack rabbits eat the offsets ; he 

 states that at Baghdad a '' squirrel-hke animal " eats the fruit. The Mammalia 

 of Mesopotamia are now well-known, but I am not able to guess which animal he 

 was referring to ; probably it is the mongoose (Mungos persicus), which is common 



