262 INSECT PESTS OF FARM, GARDEN AND ORCHARD 



States and in Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and South- 

 western Alabama. There seems to be no reason why it should 

 not continue to spread throughout the cotton belt. 









FIG. 190. The cotton boll weevil, natural size, showing variation in 

 size and color. 



In 1904, after an exhaustive study of all available data, the 

 writer estimated the loss in Texas alone at $25,000,000, and 



that the pest had then cost the 

 State $100,000,000. Owing to 

 decrease in acreage and the gen- 

 eral use of methods for preventing 

 or avoiding injury, the injury 

 has not increased proportion- 

 ately to the spread of the pest, 

 but the total annual loss is 'at 

 least as much as in 1904, though 

 no accurate estimates have been 

 recently made for the whole ter- 

 ritory affected. 



Life History. The parent of 

 all this damage is a small brownish beetle about one-quarter inch 

 long, varying from one-eighth to one-third, including the snout, 

 which is about half as long as the body. Recently emerged 

 weevils are light yellowish in color, but they soon become grayish- 

 brown -and later almost blackish. There are many nearly related 

 weevils which very closely resemble the boll weevil, and only an 

 entomologist can identify the species with certainty, but the two 

 teeth at the tip of the femora of the fore-legs (Fig. 191), are the 



FIG. 191. The cotton boll weevil 

 enlarged. 



