22 REPORT 4, UNITED STATES ENTOMOT^OGICAL COMMISSION. 



To sum up the evidence from present knowledge : Aletia never liiber- 

 nates in either of the first three states of egg, larva, or chrysalis, and it 

 survives the winter in the moth or imago state only in the soaihern por- 

 tion of the cotton belt. Our own investigations since 1S78 in every cot- 

 ton-growing State in the Union, together with the experience and testi- 

 mony of both correspondents and special agents emploj^ed in the inves- 

 tigation, confirmed us in these conclusions, and we were consequently 

 perfectly prepared for their justification by the facts obtained during the 

 winter of 1881-82. During this winter we were able to obtain the moths 

 during every month, and watched them in fact until the early part of 

 March. In short, there is nothing more fully established now than that 

 the moth hibernates principally under the shelter of rank wire-grass 

 in the more heavily timbered portions of the South, and that these 

 moths begin laying on the rattoon cotton when this is only one inch or 

 so high.* 



1. It is quite certain that by far the larger portion of the moths from 

 the last brood of worms perish in various ways without perpetuating 

 the species. All those which fly north of the cotton belt must needs 

 thus perish, as doubtless do all those that attempt to hibernate in the 

 northern portion of said belt. The evidence is strong that even in the 

 hibernating portion of the belt only the exceptional few, more favored 

 than the rest and remaining steadily torpid till early spring, survive to 

 beget progeny. Those which are aroused to activity during the mild 

 winter weather spend their force without finding compensating nourish- 

 ment, as there are neither fruits, flowers, nor sweet- secreting glands at 

 that season wherewith to br^ak their long fast and sustain vitality. It 

 is for these reasons that the worms are generally less injurious after 

 mild and changeable winters, and most to be dreaded after severe and 

 steady ones, and it may very justly be argued, that did the larger pro- 

 portion of the moths survive, there would be no chance to grow cotton. 

 Like perishing of the bulk of most insects that hibernate above ground 

 is, in fact, an acknowledged rule in entomology. 



2. The localities where Aletia doubtless hibernates, and where, conse- 

 quently, the earliest worms appear, seem to be more common in the 

 western parts of the cotton belt than in the Atlantic States. Since the 

 civil war the almost complete abandonment of cotton cultivation on the 

 sea islands uf the coast of Florida and Georgia has evidently reduced the 

 number of favorable hibernating localities there, and in so far protected 

 the more northern or western, portion of the Atlantic States from the 

 immigration of the moth from those quarters. In Texas, on the con- 

 trary, the cultivation of cotton has been constantly increasing since 

 that time, and consectaneously the number of hibernating i)oints and 

 the risk of serious harm there over extended areas have also increased. 



* See abstract of paper read before the National Academy of Sciences at Washington, May, 1882 ; 

 also Annnal Report, Department of Agriculture, 1881-'82, p. 1G6. 



