358 Journal of Agricultural Research v 0 i. ix, no. io 
MANNER OF DISPERSION 
While P. gossypiella has ample wing power for an insect of its size 
and is capable of strong, darting flight, it is not mainly by flight that 
the distribution of'the species to new fields is effected. The moths are 
rather too sluggish for sustained flight, and it is only fields near by or 
actually adjoining that are infested in this way. 
A group of a dozen cotton plants growing only some 4,000 to 5,000 
feet from the heavily infested cotton field under special observation was 
found well infested in early June. All the bolls, squares, and flowers 
were removed from these 12 plants, and the new crop of bolls, maturing 
in September and October, remained entirely free from infestation, 
although thousands of moths were liberated during the summer from 
the breeding house, situated some 4,000 to 5,000 feet away from them 
and in the opposite direction from the infested field. 
Single cotton trees, grown as ornaments in gardens in different parts 
of Honolulu, were found entirely free from the pest throughout the 
summer, though others a few blocks away were heavily infested. 
Nor does the wind ordinarily play any considerable role in the dis¬ 
persion of the pest. The moths normally remain quiet in any strong 
breeze and, if accidently dislodged by the wind, drop to the ground as 
soon as possible. Specimens were repeatedly shaken out of rearing jars 
in strong winds. Such specimens would be carried with the wind for 
a short distance, but would invariably soon settle down on the ground. 
The dispersion of the species by the wind, however, can not be disre¬ 
garded. Under favorable conditions it is possible for both the moths 
and the larvae which happen to be in loose detached cotton lint to be 
carried by a strong wind for a considerable distance from field to field. 
By far the most important agent in the distribution of the pest is man. 
Owing to the possible suspension of the larval life for a prolonged period, 
hibernating larvae may be transported to any distance within the seed 
of cotton and in due time produce adults. It is in this manner that 
the species has become distributed with cotton importations over such 
large areas and from continent to continent. 
FOOD PLANTS 
The writer, from his observations in the Hawaiian Islands, is con¬ 
vinced that the pink bollworm is confined to the genus Gossypium. 
Statements that it feeds also in various malvaceous and other plants 
are probably due to wrong determinations of the insect. 
Maxwell-Lefroy states (9) that the species feeds in species of Hibiscus 
in India; Dudgeon (28) records it from pomegranate in Egypt; Fullaway 
(16) has reported it from milo (Thespesia populnea) in Hawaii. 
This last record, however, was based on the rearing of a single specimen 
from a fallen fruit of milo on the ground of the Agricultural Experiment 
