16 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



The kidney cotton is much preferred by the Anthonomus to 

 the loose cotton. In fact, trees of the latter species, if growing 

 by themselves, are, as a rule, not infested,* whereas if they 

 grow in close proximity to the kidney cotton they are liable to 

 infestation, although always in a lesser degree than the kidney 

 cotton. 



From these observations I firmly believe that, as far as Cuba 

 is concerned, the kidney cotton is the original food-plant of the 

 weevil. Furthermore, I do not hesitate to assert, after my 

 experience in Cuba, that Anthonomus grandis, wherever it 

 occurs, has no other food-plants than the various species or vari 

 eties of the genus Gossypium. The few scattered notes that Dr. 

 Howard has been able to obtain regarding the boll-weevil in the 

 more tropical parts of Central America appear to corroborate the 

 conclusions obtained in Cuba. 



Whether Anthonomus grandis and its food-plant are natives 

 of Cuba, or whether both have, in ancient times, been imported 

 from the Central American continent, is a question the answer to 

 which seems to be lost in antiquity. 



In the cotton belts of Texas and Northern Mexico by far the 

 largest number of the weevils perish, from various causes, during 

 the cold season. Only a few successfully hibernate, and form, 

 in the ensuing spring, the nucleus of a new set of generations, 

 the weevils increasing in numbers until late in the fall. The 

 mild winter temperature of Cuba, however, does not prevent the 

 cotton plants from producing new squares, flowers, or bolls, nor 

 the Anthonomus from breeding. As to the plant's of the culti 

 vated cotton in Cuba, some retardation in growth is noticeable 

 during the colder months, and the number of weevils upon them 

 is then lessened from the inability of the plants to produce suffi 

 cient food supply. But the wild cotton plants of Cuba are in no 

 way affected by the colder weather ; nevertheless, the weevils 

 have never been known, either in winter or summer time, to be 

 come numerous enough to prevent these plants from copiously 

 flowering or ripening their bolls ; whereas, as stated above, the 

 effect of the attack of the weevil on cultivated cotton resulted, 

 within a few weeks, in the complete disappearance of flowers 

 and bolls. The same phenomenon has been observed in many 

 other species of insects which are not, or but little, injurious to 

 their original food-plants, but which, when transferred to the 

 same or an allied plant under cultivation, become very destructive. 



To the question of parasites of the boll-weevil much attention 

 was paid by me while in Cuba, but upon opening many hundreds 



* It is probably for this reason that I failed to find the weevil in the 

 vicinity of Havana. 



