NATURE OF INJURY. 13 



Bureau. ** Prof. E. D. Sanderson during the same year conducted 

 observations on miscellaneous cotton insects in Texas, including sev- 

 eral of the Heteroptera. The results of his work on this subject 

 have been incorporated in a Farmers' Bulletin of the Department of 

 Agriculture^ and in a regular bulletin of this Bureau. '^ Plant-bugs 

 attacking cotton in the Bismarck Archipelago and in German East 

 Africa have been considered by Dr. Th. Kuhlgatz in a publication of 

 the Berlin Zoological Museum in 1905.^ This report contains but few 

 field notes outside of records of food plants. A valuable report on 

 cotton stainers in the West Indies was published by Mr. H. A. Ballou 

 in 1906.^ 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 



NATURE OF INJURY BY PLANT-BUGS. 



In beginning the investigation of plant-bugs destructive to the 

 cotton boll one of the first steps found to be necessary was a study of 

 the nature of the injury itself so that it might be identified positively 

 or at least with reasonable certainty. As a result it has been more 

 and more impressed upon the author that to the lack of an accurate 

 knowledge of this subject is due the almost complete ignoring of 

 these insects as cotton pests. In general the connection between the 

 insects and the damage which results from their attacks is very 

 obscure to the casual observer, and consequently seldom suspected. 

 Even to an entomologist the damaged boll when dry gives by itself 

 no direct evidence of the cause of its condition without reference to 

 a field demonstration of the relation between the insects and the 

 stained or shriveled locks. 



PUBLISHED DESCRIPTIONS OF THE EFFECT OF PLANT-BUG ATTACK ON COTTON BOLLS. 



In Glover's brief publication on this subject in the U. S. Agricul- 

 tural Report for the year 1855 is to be found the earliest mention 

 of plant-bugs — Pentatomids and Coreids — as possible producers of 

 ''rot" in cotton bolls and also of the nature of injury by the cotton 

 stainer. This discussion, of the damage to cotton caused by the 

 Coreidse, is the most complete that has been published, and in fact all 

 later references to the subject are based directly or indirectly upon 

 this except the report of Mr. Schwarz's observations in the Bahamas 

 and the recent report by Mr. Ballou. Heretofore it seems to have 

 been the popular belief in Florida that the principal damage to the 



a Bui. 54, Bur. Ent., U. S. Dept. Agr., pp. 18-34. 

 & Farmers' Bui. 223, U. S. Dept. Agr., pp. 20-21. 

 cBul. 57, Bur. Ent., U. S. Dept. Agr., pp. 44-49. 



<^ Mittheilungen aus dem Zoologischen Museum in Berlin, III Band, 1 heft, pp. 

 31-114. 



« West Indian Bulletin, Vol. VII, No. 1, pp. 64-85. 



