16 
As early as 1853 its distribution, according to Guenee," was "Central 
Europe, North America, South America, East Indies, New Holland, 
and probabl}^ in other countries of the globe." 
At the March meeting of the London Entomological Society in 1869 
specimens of the bollworm moth were exhibited by a Mr. Bond from 
the Isle of Wight, Java, and Australia. 
Mr. Grote, a well-known student of the Noctuidse, to w^hich family 
our insect belongs, has expressed the opinion that it is native to , 
America, especially because it feeds here on some peculiarl}^ American 
gene'ra of plants. Its rare occurrence in Europe as compared with 
its abundance and destructiveness in America is also cited, and from 
I 
its occurrence in Australia and Java the query is raised: Has it not 
reached Europe from America by a westward route ? As bearing on 
this point it is to be noted, as has previously been mentioned, that 
usually species introduced into a new country become much greater 
pests than in their original home, and on this basis the bollworm 
should be added to our already long list of imported pests. 
Mr. J. G. O. Tepper, of the Public Museum of South Australia 
(in lit.), sa3"s: 
The species [Heliothis ohsoJeta] appears to be indigenous throughout the continent 
[Austraha]; a specimen was brought by the Elder exploring expedition in 1892 
from a till then uninhabited region in Central Australia, and t>f the pale variety, ^g^ 
Mr. E. E. Green, the well-known student of scale insects, says: ^ 
The very fact of extensive damage by any insect may of itself almost be accepted 
as proof of its foreign origin. Looking over the list of the different scale insects 
occurring in Ceylon, I find that all of the more troublesome species have been pre- 
viously described from some other country and are, therefore, presumably imported 
insects. 
In America, however, we have numerous native insect species that 
are first class pests, as the Colorado potato beetle, the plum curculio, 
and others, so that the argument as applied to our conditions loses 
much of its force. 
More data of this character could be presented, but w^ould serve no 
useful purpose in clearing up the question of the native home of the 
bollworm. Hardl}^ an3^thing can be inferred from a consideration of 
the food plants of the insect, for it is practically omnivorous. Its pre- 
ferred food plant in the United States is corn, and probabl}^ also 
throughout its range in other countries where this crop is grown. Its 
second choice in this countr}" is cotton, a plant which has for centuries 
been grown in many parts of the world. Its third choice is probably 
tomatoes, a plant held to be native to Peru. . , 
Except in the United States but little has been recorded concerning 
its parasites, and these are all native to America. 
«Lep. Noc, II, p. 181. 
