TEXAS NATUEE OBSERVATIONS AND REMINISCENCES. 2& 



culiar. and characteristic position 

 of the two front legs as seen also 

 on the photo. 



These insects have many ene- 

 mies, especially birds and tree liz- 

 ards. Some time ago during an 

 outing and camping under a huge 



body and off it went into a hol- 

 low of the tree to finish its meal. 



These tree lizards, by the way,, 

 are very useful animals, as they 

 live entirely on insects, and they 

 should not be molested in any 

 way. There are various types of 



Full Grown Mantis in "Praying" Attitude 



pecan tree a commotion was 

 heard), and looking around the 

 broad tree trunk two black liz- 

 ards were noticed trying to catch 

 a large devilshorse. With a sud- 

 den jump, several feet off, one of 

 the lizards, grabbed the insect's 



tree lizards in our forests and 

 prairie plains and an interesting^ 

 lot they are when seen circling^ 

 around a tree trunk "playing hid- 

 ing," like the wild squirrel in its 

 haunts when trying to evade the 

 hunter's gun. 



The Cotton Boll-Weevil Pest 



In the following memoranda, 

 some of the original private data 

 are enumerated herein anent the 

 tiny pestiferous cotton boll-weevil 

 insect that has caused millions of 

 losses to the Texas oottOn crops 

 in late years; and, for better un- 

 derstanding the matter is illus- 

 trated with several original photo- 

 micrographs which, at this time 

 were prepared by the writer many 

 years ago, and were considered 

 the first illustrations of boll-wee- 

 vils ever made before by the pho- 

 tomicrographic process, (being 

 used also in Leslie 's Weekly) . 



The insects proper at the time 

 shown in one of the illustrations 

 herein were obtained from Mr. 

 P. G. Lucas, druggist, and at pres- 



ent alderman of San Antonio, who 

 procured them fr^om a German 

 farmer and had a large number 

 of live specimens concealed in a 

 wide-mouthed bottle, supplied 

 with buds and bolls of the cotton 

 plant. The insects were not lar- 

 ger than a common fly ; six legged, 

 winged, very lively and exceed- 

 ingly greedy. From what could 

 be observed in Mr. Lucas' collec- 

 tion and on s6me of our cotton 

 fields near town, the insects lay 

 numerous eggs inside the punc- 

 tured bolls or buds or rather they 

 crawl inside the cracks of the boll 

 capsule and perhaps breed there. 

 The eggs develop numerous mag- 

 gots and these are soon trans- 

 formed into the young boll-wee- 



