19 
of the season and the date of cotton planting. By the time the planted 
cotton has grown high enough to produce squares the weevils have 
become more numerous, and those which have developed from the gen- 
eration on volunteer cotton attack the planted cotton, and through their 
punctures, either for feeding or egg laying, cause a wholesale shedding 
of the young squares. It seems to be an almost invariable rule that a 
square in which a weevil has laid an egg drops to the ground as < 
result of the work of the larva; in the square on the ground the larva 
reaches full growth, transforms to pupa, and issues eventually as a 
beetle, the time occupied in this round approximating four weeks. 
Later, as the bolls form, the weevils attack them also and lay their 
eggs in them, and the larve develop in the interior just as with the 
squares. The bolls, however, do not drop. Fig. 9, a, and b, show the 
larve in the squares, and fig. 9, 
¢, Shows a young boll cut open 
and the pupa in its customary 
position. 
There is a constant succes- 
sion of generations from early 
spring until frost, the weevils 
becoming constantly more nu- 
merous and the larvee and pup 
as well. A single female will 
occupy herself with egg laying 
for a considerable number of 
days, so that there arises by 
July an inextricable confusion 
of generations, and the insect 
may, be found in the field in all Pia. 9.—The cotton-boll weevil: a, newly hatched larva 
stages at the same time. The in young square; b, nearly full-grown larva in situ; 
bolls, as we have just stated, ¢, pupa in young boll picked from ground (author’s 
illustration). 
do not drop as do the squares, 
but gradually become discolored, usually on one side only, and by the 
time the lary become full grown generally crack open at the tip. 
While in a square one usually finds but a single larva, in a full-grown 
boll as many as twelve have been found. In any case, however; the 
hatching of a single larva in a boll results in the destruction of the 
boll to such an extent that its fiber is useless. Where no serious frost 
occurs in December, the insects all, or nearly all, reach maturity and 
enter hibernating quarters, although larvie have been found even in 
January at Sharpsburg. Whenever a heavy frost comes in this month, 
or before, the observations show that those insects which have not 
reached the beetle stage are nearly all killed. From this fact it fol- 
lows that the insect will probably not prove as injurious in other 
portions of the cotton belt as it is in southern Texas. 
It was found during the latter part of 1895 that the weevil was present 

