  It has been pointed out that cosmic string solutions can exist in gauge field
theories with broken symmetry even when $\pi _1(G/H)$ is trivial. The stability
of such semilocal defects is not guaranteed by topology and depends on
dynamical considerations. In the literature it has been tacitly assumed that if
stable, such strings would form in the Early Universe in a manner analogous to
the formation of a network of more robust topologically-stable strings. In this
paper we find that except for unnaturally small values of the correlation
length, a network of semilocal strings does not form. Instead, delocalized
skyrmionic string configurations, which expand with the Hubble flow, dominate.
