28 
when grasshoppers occur in considerable numbers, attracting them to 
a mash made of sweetened bran and arsenic will prevent leaf feeding 
to a great extent. 
Many leaf hoppers and several leaf-feeding beetles have been found 
upon the cotton plant, but need not be particularly mentioned here. 
In many portions of Texas the leaves are frequently cut off by the 
so called leaf-cutting ant, Gicodoma fervens. One of the few practical 
remedies against this destructive insect, which damages fruit trees and 
other field crops as well as cotton, consists in tracing the ants to their 
nest (which is often an extremely difficult thing to do) and destroying 
them there by copious applications of kerosene or bisulphide of carbon. 
- Another method, which has been practiced with some success by an 
intelligent Texan, is to spread a line of cyanide of potassium across the 
well-defined path by which the ants leave their nest; this kills very 
many, and deters the ants from taking the direction of the particular path 
thus obstructed. 
INSECTS DAMAGING THE STALK, 
Puneturing of the terminal portion of the stalk by plant bugs occa- 
sionally occurs, but is comparatively rare. There is but one borer in 

Fia. 16.-—Cotton stalk borer (Ataxia crypta): a, larva from above; b, larva from side; ¢, tunneled 
cotton stalk showing exit hole; d, adult beetle—all enlarged except ¢ (author’s illustration). 
the stalks of cotton, and that is the long-horned beetle known as A tawia 
erypta (tig. 16). It is occasionally mistaken for an enemy to the plant, 
but investigation has shown that it lays its eggs upon and its larvee bore 
into only such stalks as have been damaged by some other cause, such 
as rust. It follows injury to the plant, therefore, rather than causes it. 
INSECTS INJURING THE BOLL. 
As in the case of the stalk borer just mentioned, numerous species 
of insects are found in damaged bolls which are the result, rather than 
the cause, of the damage. Several little Nitidulid beetles are found in 
