4 
bolls as a result of frost, the adult weevils leave the plant and seek 
shelter under rubbish at the surface of the ground, or among weeds and 
trash at the margin of the fields. Here they remain until the warm 
days of spring when they fly to the first buds on such volunteer plants 
as may come up in the neighborhood. They feed on these and lay 
their eggs on the early squares, and one, or perhaps two, generations 
are developed in such situations, the number depending upon the char- 
acter 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 
generation 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 a 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 
Fig. 4.—Mature boll cut open at left, showing full grown larva; the one at the right not cut, and 
showing feeding punctures and oviposition marks. 
eggs in them, and the larve develop in the interior just as with the 
squares. The bolls, however, do not drop. Fig. 8, @ and b, show the 
larvee in the squares, and ¢; a young boll eut open and the pupa in its 
customary position. 
There is a constant succession of generations from early spring until 
frost, the weevils becoming constantly more numerous and the larvee 
and pup as well. A single female will oceupy herself with egg-laying 
for a considerable number of days, so that there arises by July an inex- 
tricable confusion of generations, and the insect may be found in the 
field in all stages at the same time. The bolls, as we have just stated, 
do not drop as do the squares, but gradually become discolored, usually 
on one side only, and by the time the larva becomes full grown gener- 
ally crack open at the tip. While one usually finds but a single larva 
in a square, as many as twelve may be found in a full-grown boll. 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 larvee have been 
