Tol. VII, No. 4.] INSECT LIFE. [Issued March, 1895. 



SPECIAL NOTES. 



The New Cotton-boll Weevil. — Under the beading' " A N'ew Cotton 

 Insect in Texas" we mentioned in the last number of Insect Life the 

 introduction of Anthonomus grandis from Mexico into Texas cotton 

 fields, and promised a more detailed account of the insect in this num- 

 ber. The matter seems so important that Mr. C. H. Tyler Townsend 

 has been employed as a special agent, and in December was sent on a 

 preliminary investigating tour through the infested region. He will 

 remain at Brownsville, Tex., during the remaining months of the fiscal 

 year engaged in following out the complete life history of the species. 

 Mr. Townsend has submitted a preliminary report, which we publish in 

 this number, and which will afford a good basis for future investiga- 

 tions, and will at the same time inform cotton jilanters thoroughly of 

 what is known down to the jiresent time. The Honorable Assistant Sec- 

 retary of Agriculture has notified the governor of Texas of the serious 

 nature of the outlook, and has urged the importance of immediate leg- 

 islation which will provide for quarantining and the enforcement of 

 remedial work. 



Florida Insects and the December Freeze — Press dispatches of Decem- 

 ber 30 and 31, in referring to the great damage done to the orange 

 and other crops in Florida by the extraordinarily low temperature 

 of December 29, stated incidentally that the freeze also caused great 

 mortality among injurious insects. Mr. H. (Jr. Hubbard, of this 

 office, went to Florida the last week in December, and has written us 

 that the newspaper reports were not exaggerated. During the first 

 week in January he made observations upon the effect of the cold upon 

 injurious insects. Gardens and fruit were all frozen, and the orange 

 trees were seriously injured, but not all killed. Green leaves and ten- 

 der vegetation were frozen so suddenly and completely that in many 

 cases they dried up without changing color. The orange trees changed 

 from green to brown. Unnumbered millions of insects were killed by 

 the cold. All the cockroaches in sight were destroyed, even those in 

 houses, and only those will survive which happen to have been excep- 

 tionally well sheltered. All young scale insects which have not passed 



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