354 
Journal of Agricultural Research 
Vol. IX, No. io 
Throughout the following five months eggs, larvae, and pupae were col¬ 
lected and moths issued in the rearing jars every day. By September 
the percentage of infested bolls was 90 to 99 in the different fields 
under observation 
HABITS OF THE IMAGO 
The imago of the pink bollworm is an inconspicuously colored moth 
and is very rarely observed in nature. The inconspicuousness, however, 
is due as much to the retired habits of the moth as to its color and is par¬ 
alleled in many other Microlepidoptera. Such a common insect, for 
example, as the codling moth ( Carpocapsa) Laspeyresia pomonella , is 
seldom or never observed in nature. 
It is very perplexing to walk through a heavily infested cotton field 
and not to be able to discover a single moth, although one knows that 
thousands of them have issued that morning and other thousands every 
day for a week and that all these thousands must be somewhere near you. 
The moths find their resting places during the day near or on the 
ground, in rubbish around the roots of the plants, or under stones. They 
often partially burrow into the surface of the ground for shade and con¬ 
cealment. Only occasionally is a specimen found on the cotton, hidden 
away at the base of the boll, under the large calyx. 
As an experiment, several dozen moths which had issued in the rear¬ 
ing cages were repeatedly liberated in the middle of a cotton field by 
shaking them out of a jar onto the ground. Within a minute none were 
in plain sight. All had effectively hidden away, mostly on the uneven 
surface of the ground. 
The same secretive habit prevails under artificial conditions indoors. 
Hundreds of moths were reared weekly and liberated in a small rearing 
house, yet rarely were any in sight after a few hours. Two hundred 
moths were liberated daily in a living room on seven successive days, but 
only by search were any to be found during the daytime. 
REACTION TO LIGHT 
Like most of its relatives, the cotton moth is negatively heliotropic and 
invariably seeks protection from direct sunlight and even from diffused 
daylight. Its time of activity is, as before stated, at dusk, from 6.30 to 
8 p. m. Of a hundred or more newly issued moths liberated daily in the 
rearing house, a large percentage would, on the opening of the rearing 
jars, fly to the screened north wall of the house in an effort to escape, 
but shortly afterward they would be found to have left the light-exposed 
screens and to have crawled or flown to darker parts of the house, espe¬ 
cially to the comers near the floor. 
Nor is artificial light an attraction to the moths of this species, as it is 
to a large number of other Microlepidoptera. Strong kerosene and acety- 
