INTRODUCTION. 
This bulletin contains all of the reports from the Agents of the Divis- 
ion for the season of 1886 with the exception of those from Mr. Coquil- 
lett and Mr. Koebele on remedies for the Cottony Cushion-scale of 
California (Icerya purchast Maskell), that of Mr. Webster on insects 
affecting grains, which will be published in the Annual Report of the 
Department, and that of Mr. Ashmead on insects injurious to garden 
crops in Florida, which is reserved for the next bulletin. 
Mr. Bruner’s report on locusts in Texas during the spring of 1886 is 
interesting in its local bearing and from the similarity of this outbreak 
of non-migratory or partially migratory species in the far Southwest to 
that in the extreme Northeast described in our Annual Report for 
1883. 
Miss Murtfeldt’s notes from Missouri, Mr. Alwood’s report on some 
injurious insects from Ohio, and Mr. Bruner’s report on Nebraska in- 
sects are simply short accounts of the prominent injurious insects of 
this particular season in their respective localities. Dr. Packard’s 
fourth report on insects injurious to forest and shade trees contains an 
account of a new and important enemy of spruce cones, and consider- 
able matter whichis new and of interest both from the entomological 
and from the forestry standpoints. 
Mr. Webster’s experiments upon the effect of the puncture of certain 
plant-bugs were undertaken with a view of settling the disputed ques- 
tion as to whether these punctures are poisonous. The experiments in 
‘the main prove such a poisonous effect, and 1 may here state, without 
going into a general discussion of the subject, that while in Columbus, 
Ohio, in May, 1886, I found the immature forms of Poecilocapsus 4-vit- 
tatus blighting the young shoots of both Gooseberry and Currant, and 
that in this case the poisonous nature of the puncture was unmistak- 
able. The punctured shoots were without exception blasted and dis- 
torted. 
Mr. Alwood’s tests with insecticides upon garden insects were under- 
taken as a continuation of those recorded in Bulletin No. 11 of the di- 
vision, and will be of interest both on account of the new locality and 
on account of several new substances experimented with. 
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