108 PESTS OP THE COTTON PLANT. 



transparent wing-s folded over the back. The female is slightly larger 

 than the male but otherwise outwardly similar. 



The whole period from the egg to the perfect insect's emergence is 

 twelve days. The mature insects lay eggs and then die. They may 

 live for many weeks before they lay eggs, and if food for their young is 

 not available they wait. Probably they pass the dry weather in the 

 adult condition if no food is available for them, as they may be found on 

 the plants of cotton, etc., at different times of the year. In the cotton 

 season their increase is rapid, the eggs being laid in the cotton bolls. 

 At other times they will lay eggs in the pods of the bhindi (Hibiscus 

 esculfinfus) and possibly of other malvaceous plants, or wait until 

 egg-laying becomes possible. 



The amount of destruction caused by these insects varies with cir- 

 cumstances. Where there is abundance of worm-eaten bolls, the insects 

 live in these bolls, which open early. They are then credited with the 

 damage done by the boll-worm, as they are the only insect found when 

 the boll is picked. The actual destruction to the crop in this case is 

 small. Where there are no bolls attacked by worm, they attack the 

 bolls as they open and are responsible for damage. The seeds are sucked, 

 the lint is dirtied, and they increase very rapidly in such bolls. 



The simplest method of treating them is to shake them off the bolls 

 into a vessel containing water and a small quantity of kerosene. The 

 early ripening bolls contain them in great numbers, and by shaking these 

 bolls over a tin pot of kerosene and water they will be killed in large 

 numbers. Worm-eaten bolls, with the insects inside, may be picked off 

 and removed in a bag. There would be a far smaller number of the insect 

 in cotton fields were this done, and the method of testing cotton seed 

 (page 287) should be applied to seed from infested fields. This method of 

 picking off and shaking the bolls may be tedious and long, but it is the 

 only practicable method as a rule. On farms the work can be better done 

 with a spraying machine. It is extremely important to check the pest at 

 the outset when it is breeding in the first opened bolls, and very much 

 better cotton will be obtained w^hen the cultivator takes an interest in his 

 cotton pests and attempts to check them. What is said about testing cotton 

 seed infested with Red Bug applies also to seed sucked by the Dusky Bug. 



The pest is generally distributed in the plains, though rarely abuitdant. 



The Cotton Leaf Hopper.^ 



Among the common insect pests of cotton, the least noticeable is 

 a tiny green fly, which lives on the cotton leaves and fli es or leaps out 



» 82. (J^ssidse.) 



