LEPTOGLOSSUS PHYLLOPUS L. 89 



1 specimen to every 10 plants. Prof. Wilmon Newell, secretary of 

 the State Crop Pest Commission of Louisiana, and his assistants, 

 while inspecting cotton fields for the Mexican cotton boll weevil 

 in Rapides Parish, La., in September, 1905, found this species of 

 leaf-footed plant-bug very abundant. The following quotation 

 from Professor NewelFs notes, which he has kindly permitted to 

 be used in this bulletin, illustrates the degree of importance these 

 insects may attain in consideration of the individual destructiveness 

 of plant-bugs, as shown in the studies of the conchuela. 



On September 7, in western Rapides Parish, adults of this species were found in 

 abundance in cotton fields, usually resting or feeding on green bolls. In two or three 

 fields near Forest Hill, these insects were so abundant as to average at least 2 adults 

 to each stalk of cotton. Their damage in the aggregate must be considerable. Hemip- 

 terous nymphs found on the bolls appeared to be of this species. Between September 

 1 and 10 these bugs were found in greater or less abundance in every cotton field 

 inspected in Rapides Parish. 



The author considers the species of plant-bug here discussed fully 

 the equal of the conchuela in individual destructive capabilities. 

 The data given in Table XXVI (p. 57) show that in one cotton field 

 damage by the conchuela amounted to about 50 per cent when the 

 bugs were about one-fourth as numerous as were the leaf-footed bugs 

 in the 3 fields near Forest Hill, La., referred to by Professor Newell. 



On September 9, 1905, a female was taken in coitu and brought 

 to the laboratory. It was supplied with fresh cotton bolls daily, 

 but produced no eggs and died on October 28, the forty-ninth day 

 of its confinement in the breeding cage. Upon dissection only 1 egg 

 was found; this was of mature size and color, closely resembling in 

 size, structure, and color the eggs of L. oiypositus, described and 

 figured by Dr. Chittenden. H. G. Hubbard^ has stated that the 

 normal food plant of this bug in the South is a large thistle. Mr. 

 F. C. Pratt observed adults in considerable numbers on dockweed 

 (Rumex sp.) near San Antonio, Tex., on April 19, 1906, feeding and 

 copulating, and on thistles near Baton Rouge, La., on April 22, 1906. 



Professor Newell found on May 19, 1905, in Sabine Parish, La., 

 adults of L. pJiyllopus in abundance upon stems and seed-pods of 

 ''bear grass ^' {Yucca filamentosa), a common weed in the western 

 part of that State and generally found in greater or less abundance 

 in and around all cotton fields. In many cases the adults occurred 

 upon the ''bear grass" so abundantly that the stems and seed-pods 

 were literally covered with them, and in several cases two or three 

 dozen specimens were collected from the stems and seed-pods of a 

 single plant. The insects could not be found on any other plant and 

 seemed to depend entirely upon the "bear grass" for their subsistence 

 at that season of the year. 



a Insects affecting the Orange, p. 169, U. S. Dept. Agr., Div. Ent., 1885. 



