74 PLANT-BUGS INJURIOUS TO COTTON BOLLS. 



Its distribution in the cotton belt is apparently restricted to western 

 Texas, for there is no instance known to the writer of a specimen 

 being taken east of the semiarid region of that State 



PENTATOMID BUGS OF THE GENUS EUSCHISTUS. 



The several species of Euschistus, the genus to which the brown 

 cotton-bug belongs, have never attracted much attention from 

 economic entomologists. Townend Glover ^ briefly described a Pen- 

 tatomid which with httle doubt belongs to this genus and noted that 

 the species was abundant on cotton in Georgia in 1854 and in Florida 

 in 1855, piercing the bolls and sucking their juices. The species 

 referred to is probably EuscMstus pundijMS Say (variolarius Pal. 

 Beauv.),as it is this one which the same author figured with the 

 insects that attack young bolls in his ^'Manuscript Notes from my 

 Journal." ^ The late Dr. Wm. H. Ashmead ^ recorded E. pyrrJiocerus H. 



Schf. as not of rare occurrence in cot- 

 ton fields in Mississippi and noted that 

 it punctures new shoots and terminal 

 branches. 



So far as known to the writer these are 

 the only published records of injury to 

 cotton by species of Euschistus. Injury 

 to tobacco by E, variolarius has been 

 reported by Prof. H. Garman,^ and by 

 .Fig. 12.— The brown cotton-bug (Eus- E. fissiUs Uhl. to wheat by Prof . F. M. 



cMstus servus): Nymph, first instar. WpU^fp^ e Dr J A T.lTltTier/ IS reSDOTl- 

 Enlarged 21 diameters. (Original.) VVeObtei. UV. d. i^. -l^intnei ^ IS rCSpOU 



sible for the statement that the former 

 species ''feeds upon plants and animals interchangeably.'' Mr. A. H. 

 Kirkland^ has found E, politus to be partly predaceous. 



In Texas E. servus Say is by far the most common representative 

 of the genus found in the cotton fi.elds and is the only one upon which 

 special observations have been made in connection with the studies 

 reported upon in this paper. The species was described in 1831 

 under the name Pentatoma serva. No observations have heretofore 

 been recorded on the biology of the insect. Euschistus impictiven- 

 tris Stal and E. tristigmus Say are the only other members of the genus 

 which the writer has found upon cotton. 



a U. S. Agricultural Report for 1855, pp. 93-94. 



6 Plate 16. 



c Insect Life, Vol. VII, p. 320, 1895. 



dB\i\. 66, Ky. Agr. Exp. Sta., pp. 33-34, 1897. 



e Rep. Dept. Agr. for 1885, p. 317. 



/2d Rep. N. Y. St. Ent., p. 146, 1885. 



^44th Ann. Rep. Sec. Mass. St. Bd. Agr., 1896, pp. 406-407, 1897. 



