362 
Journal of Agricultural Research 
Vol. IX, No. 10 
Opportunity was not afforded to test this means as thoroughly as 
would have been desirable, by having separate plots of cotton with 
poultry compared with sufficiently distant control plots without poultry; 
but even without such careful tests it was evident that considerable pro¬ 
tection was afforded by the poultry. Plots to which the fowls had access 
were less infested than adjoining plots from which they were excluded. 1 
SYNONYMY OF PECTINOPHORA GOSSYPIELEA SAUNDERS 
Depressaria gossypiella Saunders (1). Gelechia gossypiella Walsingham (13). 
Gelechia gossypiella Meyrick (6). Gelechia gossypiella Durrant (26). 
THE SCAVENGER BOLLWORM, AN INSECT MISTAKEN FOR THE PINK 
BOLLWORM 
The caterpillars of a few other species of small moths may occasionally 
be found in cotton bolls in the United States and have repeatedly been 
mistaken for the pink bollworm, causing anxiety that this dreaded pest 
had become established in American cotton fields. 
Among such species are ( Platynota ) Sparganothis idaeusalis Walker 
and 5 . rostrana Walker, which belong to the family Tortricidae. 
The larvae of these species are normally leaf-rollers on cotton and some 
other plants, but, especially in the fall of the year, they may enter the 
opened bolls, which afford convenient places for the larvae to hibernate 
and pupate. These species rarely, if ever, do any actual primary damage 
to the bolls. 
Much more common in the open cotton bolls are the small reddish 
caterpillars of Pyroderces rileyi, which, on account of their color, are likely 
to suggest the pink bollworm to the casual observer in the field, and 
which on several occasions have aroused unnecessary fears, even among 
entomologists. 
This species is very commonly associated with cotton wherever this 
plant is grown, in both North America and South America, the West 
Indies, and the Hawaiian Islands. 2 
These larvae, however, never do any independent primary injury to 
sound bolls, but live as scavengers in the more or less decayed dry bolls 
injured by other insects. The species is not confined to cotton, but feeds 
on dried and decayed fruits of many other plants. 3 
Aside from the color of the larva, there is only superficial resemblance 
between it and the pink bollworm; and even the color is somewhat differ¬ 
ent—much deeper and more reddish. Full grown, it is much smaller 
than the pink bollworm and appears more hairy because of the propor¬ 
tionally longer setae; the actual number of hairs is the same in both 
1 Numerous experiments for the control of this species by insecticides have been recorded in literature 
(14,31,35*38). 
2 A closely allied species, Pyroderces simplex Wlsm., is found as a scavenger in cotton in Africa. 
8 The species has been reported by Chittenden (48) as doing primary injury to corn in the husk, probably 
having been attracted to the decaying silk. 
