ENTOMOLOGY 241 



plication of the dust can be repeated in ten days or two weeks, if the 

 attacks are very severe. Paris green would burn the leaves of the 

 cotton and is not recommended. (Ark. E. S. Cir. 4.) 



The Mexican Cotton-Boll WeeviL The most important of the 

 insects which damage the cotton boll, next to the bollworm itself, is 

 the cotton-boll weevil. This insect is a small, grayish weevil, meas- 

 uring a little less than a quarter of an inch in length. It is found in 

 the cotton fields throughout the season, puncturing and laying its 

 eggs in the squares and bolls. The larvae measure a little over three- 

 eighths of an inch in length when full grown, live within the buds 

 and bolls and feed upon their interior substance. The squares at- 

 tacked usually drop, but most of the damaged bolls remain upon the 

 plant and become stunted or dwarfed, except late in the season, when 

 they either dry or rot 



The insect passes the winter in the weevil state. It can be 

 found in the cotton plant until late in December, and, in fact, as 

 long as any portion of the plant is green. It is found most abun- 

 dantly in the early winter hidden between the involucre and the 

 boll, and later it frequently makes its way down into the dry and open 

 bolls. The dry boll is probably not a frequently successful hibernat- 

 ing place. 



With the cutting of the plants, or with the rotting or drying 

 of the 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 re- 

 main 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 per- 

 haps two generations are developed in such situations, the number 

 depending upon the character 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 oe 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 eggs in 

 them, and the larvae develop in the interior just as with the squares. 

 The bolls, however, do not drop. 



There is a constant succession of generations from early spring 

 until frost, the weevils becoming constantly more numerous and the 

 larvae and pupae as well. A single female will occupy herself \vhh 

 egg laying for a considerable number of days, so that there arises 

 by July an inextricable confusion of generations, and the in-e<, -t 

 may be found in the field in all stages at the same time. The 

 as we have just stated, do not drop as do the squares, but gr^du^ly 



