16 PROTECTION OF PLANTS, 1916-17 



composed of state officers of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, 

 Arkansas and Oklahoma, and agents of the Bureau of Entomology in charge 

 of Hunter, Pierce and Hinds. 



The results, being a joint product of many workers, are unusually com- 

 plete, and all phases of the situation caused by the weevil are traversed very 

 fully. Perhaps no other insect has received so much careful study. In 

 addition to the detailed studies of the various stages of its life-history in 

 .which observations are recorded over a large area, oecological problems re- 

 lating to hibernation, climatic influences, food habits, tropisms, plant con- 

 trol, natural control, parasites and inethods of repression are discussed at 

 length. An interesting series of observations relate to proliferation, the 

 reaction of the tissues injured by the egg puncture or the larva. A mass of 

 new cells form about the injured tissue enclosing the larva and the pressure 

 induced is often sufficient to kill the larva and even the adult. 



One of the most valuable and -suggestive features of this bulletin for 

 the economic entomologist is the description of the methods of study and 

 investigation used in getting information regarding the various phases of 

 the problem. 



Considering, then, the character, number, importance and monographic 

 completeness of the investigations carried out, we have no hesitation in 

 ranking Hunter and Pierce's "Mexican Cotton-Boll Weevil" among the 

 masterpieces of recent economic entomology. 



"The Periodical Cicada" by C. L. Maria tt 



This bulletin (71) of the Bureau of Entomology, U. S. Department of 

 Agriculture, was published in 1907 and is a revision of bulletin 14, published 

 in 1898. To my mind it is unusually replete with information regarding 

 the habits and life-history of the insect, and, so far as I know, little of im- 

 portance that is new has been added since its publication ten years ago. 



The Periodical Cicada, also frequently called the Seventeen- Year Lo- 

 cust, but improperly as it is not a locust at all, has an unique life-history 

 inasmuch as it spends thirteen or seventeen years underground in nymphal 

 condition. One race or sub-species has a thirteen-year nymphal period, 

 and is mostly confined to the Southern States, while the other and more 

 common race has a seventeen-year period and occurs mostly in the Northern 

 States. The adults do not appear at the same time or in the same year; on 

 the other hand they appear as broods in different years, each brood "being 

 limited to well-defined districts, and each reappearing at the proper inters'als 

 with absolute regularity." Altogether twenty-one broods "have been 



