HIBERNATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF BOLL WEEVIL. 19 



SO little cotton was made on this piece that it was not worth picking, 

 while cotton planted at the same time and cultivated in the same man- 

 ner on other parts of the plantation made a good j^ield. 



Professor Mall}" (1. c, p. 57) has given the observations of Mr. 

 Teltschick upon finding weevils hibernating in the crevices of the soil 

 around the cotton stalks and roots, at a depth of 3 inches. On March 

 7, 1901, a raw, windy day, upon 35 stalks, he found 7 live and 2 dead 

 weevils from 1 to 3 inches below the surface. In September, 1902, 

 he stated that he had again found weevils in a similar situation during 

 the previous spring, but not as manj^ of them as in 1901. Mr.' Telt- 

 schick recently writes as follows: 



I found but few weevils in crevices around stalks during the last two winters, 

 partly because there were no crevices (frequent rains filling them up as soon as 

 formed) and partly because freezes were severe enough to keep cotton from coming 

 out during any part of the last two winters; whereas in 1900 we had neither rain 

 enough to fill up crevices nor frost enough to keep cotton from budding out at inter- 

 vals at the base of the stalk, which latter fact accounts, no doubt, for the relatively 

 large number of weevils found within the crevices. 



TIME OF EMERGENCE FROM HIBERNATION. 



Hunter and Hinds ^'^ state that the first weevils emerge when the 

 mean average temperature has been for some time above 60°. Our 

 observations at the college upon the earliest emergence from hiberna- 

 tion are as follows: In 1903 the first weevil was found on May 15 at 

 the college after carefully searching about 100 feet of unchopped 

 row. Repeated examinations during the next two weeks showed bat 

 a very small number of weevils. On May 8 a weevil was found in 

 the Brazos bottom after hunting about 20 minutes, and after May 

 5 planters in the bottom occasionally reported finding weevils. In 

 1904, on cotton planted March 17, the first weevils were found on 

 March 29. On April 17 and 18 onl}^ an occasional weevil could be 

 found at College Station or in the Brazos bottom after a considerable 

 search. In 1903 Mr. Teltschick wrote me on March 1 from Lavaca 

 County as follows: 



Up to a severe freeze of two weeks ago (February 16-17) I could at any time find 

 some — not man}'— in my neighbors' fields apparently feeding on buds or small leaves 

 at the base of the stalk, which had never been entirely frozen. 



However, he did not find man}^ on his own cotton until April, when 

 he picked some from trap rows which were planted on March 13. 

 In 1901 he noticed the first weevils about the middle of March, but, as 

 in previous years in other localities in southern Texas, we have records 

 of their feeding on shoots from stumpage cotton much earlier than 

 this. In general, it seems that when the normal mean temperature 



«Bul. 45, Div. Ent, U. S. Dept. Agric, p. 82. 



