64 BULLETIN NO. 4, DIVISION OF ENTOMOLOGY. 
its tributaries, and especially of those who have run on the river for a 
number of years. 
We left Para December 19, and on the 22d arrived at Maranhao. At 
this place the delay of the steamer was too short to allow of any inves- 
tigations, however short, in the field. I had time though, to call upon his 
Excellency, the President of the Province of Maranhao, and to solicit his 
support in carrying on the investigations intrusted to me. He cheer- 
fully promised to aid me in every way in his power, and furnished me 
with the names of such planters in the interior as would be able to 
answer any inquiries in regard to the diseases common to cotton and 
cane, and the methods of cultivation employed in, this country. I am 
indebted also to Snr. Themistocles Aranha, the editor of the Patz, the 
leading newspaper of the Province of Maranhao, for valuable historical 
information upon the subject of cotton culture in this part of Brazil. 
On the 27th of December we landed at Pernambuco. My original 
instructions had been to proceed to Bahia to carry on my investigations, 
but sufficient liberty of action was allowed me to enable me to stop at 
some other point, should I find it better adapted to the purposes of my 
work. 
Taking into consideration the importance of the province of Pernam- 
buco as a cotton-growing district, as compared with the province of 
Bahia, the nearness of the cotton district to the coast, and its conse- 
quent accessibility, its geographical position in relation to the southerm 
United States, and its proximity to the Bahia district, I concluded that 
it would be best for us to go into the interior from this place. 
Before leaving Washington, we had, at your request, been furnished 
letters from his Excellency the Brazilian Minister at Washington, Snr. 
Lopes Netto, to various officials in Brazil. One of these letters was 
directed to the President of the Province of Pernambuco. On the day 
following our landing, I called upon his Excellency the President. He 
gave mea set of the reports of the Presidents for several years previous, 
from which I could collect information concerning the production of 
cotton and cane, and directed that letters should be given us to the 
local authorities in the places we might visit in the cotton-growing dis- 
trict. I called also upon Dr. Portella, for many years the president 
of the Pernambuco Society of Agriculture, to obtain information in 
regard to the localities most favorable for our work, and to learn also 
what had been done by the Society or by the Government in the way of 
investigating insects and diseases common to cane and to cotton in this 
province. He gave me some publications made by the Society, and 
presented me to other gentlemen who gave me valuable information in 
regard to insect pests, cotton culture, &e. 
The cotton region, through this part of Brazil, lies just inland from 
the cane-growing lands, which form a belt along the coast from 35 to 50 
miles wide. Toward the south of the province Garanhuns is the center 
of the cotton-producing area. Further inland the production is smaller, 
