June 4,1917 
The Pink Bollworm 
355 
lene lamps, placed in a most effective manner, with white sheets as back¬ 
grounds, on a porch and in the windows of a cottage surrounded, within 20 
feet, by heavily infested cotton fields, failed to attract a single individual 
of P . gossypiella during many evenings and nights, though efforts were 
made to disturb and dislodge them in the fields by beating and shaking 
the cotton bushes. 
The trapping of these moths by light has been recorded and recom¬ 
mended and special lantern traps, which were believed to be effective, have 
even been constructed and figured (5, 8, 18, 19, 27, 30); but this method 
of combating the pest is certainly futile. The idea that these moths 
were attracted to light is based on very unsatisfactory evidence and is 
probably due to misidentification of the material collected in the traps. 
The cotton fields abound in Microlepidoptera. In Honolulu the leaf- 
folder Tortrix postvittana Walker and the scavengers Cryptoblabes aliena 
and Opogona aurisquamosa Butler are common in the cotton fields and 
are of about the same size as P. gossypiella . These species are attracted 
to light, and it has probably been specimens of these and other species 
which were captured in the traps. 
In order to study the behavior of the moth indoors and to verify, if 
possible, the records of their attraction to light under such conditions, 
a large number (200 a day for a week) of freshly emerged moths 
were liberated in a large living room in Honolulu. During the day none 
of these moths were noticeable, except when searched for in the dark 
corners or accidently disturbed by the movement of a curtain or a towel. 
At 6.30 p. m. all these moths would come to the windows, seeking their 
way outdoors, and would remain motionless on the screens or curtains 
until daylight next morning. Then they would fly back to the dark 
comers of the -room. If in the evening an electric lamp was lighted 
near the window, some of the many moths in the immediate vicinity 
would be disturbed and for a short time would be blinded by the strong 
light and would even settle on or near the lamp; but as many or more 
would fly away. Only very rarely would a cotton moth come within 
the glare of an acetylene hand lamp carried at night in the cotton field; 
but, if it did, it would invariably endeavor to fly away from the light. 
From very many varied and repeated observations under different 
conditions it may be definitely stated, notwithstanding the many other 
statements to the contrary, that Pectinophora gossypiella is not attracted 
to light, but is, on the contrary, shy of all light, natural and artificial. 1 
It has been suggested that a darkened space might be a barrier which 
the moths would not fly into or through. If such was the case, it might 
have a practical bearing in the prevention of the escape of the moths 
from cotton mills; but this is not true. The tendency of the moths, on 
the contrary, is to fly into such a dark space. 
1 Vosseler (7, p. 407) and Stuhlmann (n, p. 216) have reached the same result. 
