BIOLOGY OF TOBACCO MOTH AXD ITS CONTROL 3 



in Greece and Bulgaria, In 1931 Bovingdon (3) recorded the appear- 

 ance of E. elutella in stores of tobacco in England, Bulgaria, the 

 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the United States. 



In 1932 Jack (8, p. 33) stated that Ephestia elutella was found in 

 Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, infesting tobacco and chocolate but 

 that there was no record of its occurrence in Northern Rhodesia or 

 Nyasaland. 



Mossop (12, pp. 3-4-) recorded the moth in Salisbury infesting im- 

 ported chocolate in April 1930 and infesting stored tobacco in June 

 of the same year. He stated also that it had been recorded as a pest 

 of peanuts in Nyasaland in 1915, and that the discovery of this moth 

 in London and Salisbury led to the passage in 1931 of the Tobacco 

 Pest Suppression Act, which— 



provides for the licensing of all premises where unmanufactured tobacco is 

 prepared or held for export, for the inspection and cleansing of all such ware- 

 houses, and for the destruction of infested tobacco where necessary. 



Reed et al. (18) published a paper in 1933 giving the results of 

 preliminary studies on the biology of the moth and recording observa- 

 tions made in tobacco warehouses in Virginia in 1930 and 1931. Usti- 

 nov (22), in 1932, mentioned that this moth was found throughout 

 the southern part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics infesting 

 tobacco. 



Bovingdon (4), in May 1933, published a comprehensive report on 

 the infestation of cured tobacco in London warehouses by the tobacco 

 moth, including notes on the biology and control of the pest. 



Reed (17), in February 1935, published a report of a survey made 

 in the Near East in 1933, which showed that the tobacco moth was 

 widely distributed in the tobacco districts of Greece and Turkey. 

 Data given in this report showed that the moth was more generally 

 distributed throughout these countries than the cigarette beetle. 



Infestations of the moth were observed from 1931 to 1934 in ware- 

 houses of cigarette tobaccos of the flue-cured and Turkish types in 

 Virginia, North Carolina, New York, and New Jersey, but no infesta- 

 tions were found in Burley, dark-fired, or cigar types of tobacco, and 

 efforts to rear the moth on these types in the laboratory were unsuc- 

 cessful. 



INJURY TO TOBACCO 



The larvae of the tobacco moth are responsible for the damage to 

 cured tobacco. They begin feeding in some instances within a few 

 hours after the eggs have hatched, eating first the cuticle of the leaf. 

 After the first molt they begin eating the entire leaf, avoiding only 

 the larger veins (fig. 1). Feeding often begins at the -stem end of 

 leaves and proceeds toward the tip. In general, the details of feeding- 

 are quite similar to those of many species of leaf -eating caterpillars. 

 Much of the tobacco not consumed by the larvae during their develop- 

 ment is soiled and rendered worthless by the webbing and excrement 

 of nearly mature individuals that spin threads of silk as they move 

 about in the tobacco leaves, their fresh pellets of excrement adhering 

 to this silk. In some instances as much tobacco is rendered worthless 

 by the webbing and excrement as is consumed by the insects. In 

 infested hogsheads or bales of tobacco this webbing presents an un- 

 sightly appearance. The injury by the larvae does not often extend 



