HIBERNATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF BOLL WEEVIL. 25 



large plantation, and altho later cotton may be up, but still small. 

 Having assembled upon the early cotton, most of these weevils seem 

 to stay upon it until it squares, and they do not spread generally to 

 the later cotton until it also commences to square. This habit must be 

 taken into consideration in estimating the number of weevils upon a 

 given area in the spring, for if the cotton be not planted at the same 

 time over the entire place, neither the earliest cotton nor that planted 

 later will give a fair idea of the number of weevils which have hiber- 

 nated successfully. The total area must be taken into consideration 

 and the average for the whole place estimated by duly weighting the 

 number found upon the acreage of both early and late planting. By 

 the time the majority of hibernated weevils emerge, however, the 

 medium and late-planted cotton will be so far advanced as to hold the 

 weevils near where they emerge, and no further concentration may 

 be expected. 



SUMMER BROODS OF THE WEEVIL. 



The first summer brood of weevils from eggs deposited by the 

 hibernated adults begins to emerge from squares during the last ten 

 da}^s in May in southern Texas, and farther north, in central and 

 northern Texas, continues emerging during June and the first ten days 

 in July. Thus in Lavaca County there is a marked increase in the 

 number of weevils found in the field after June 1 or sometimes during 

 the last week of May. In 1901 Mr. Teltschick secured 2,136 weevils 

 up to the third week of May on 10 acres, the maximum appearing 

 during the second week of May; but during the last week of May he 

 secured on the same area 2,114 weevils, or very nearly as many as 

 during the whole spring, showing that the first new brood was then 

 emerging. In 1903, up to June 1, on three-fourths of an acre of trap 

 rows he had picked 211, with a maximum on May 18; but on June 1 

 he secured 368, and during the month of June 1,759, with the maxi- 

 mum number on the 15th. In 1904, on the one-fourth-acre plot pre- 

 viously mentioned he secured 453 up to June 1, the maximum number 

 of 150 on May 23; but on June 4 250 were secured and 146 on June 

 18. Mr. Teltschick writes as follows: 



In my opinion very few weevils, if any, matured from punctured squares before 

 June either in this or previous years in this section. Cotton planted here March 1 

 (this is as early as any is planted, the greater bulk never being planted before April 

 1) as a rule begins to form squares on April 25. It requires the squares at that time 

 from two to three weeks to grow large enough to provide the food necessary for the 

 development of the weevil. The squares are, of course, being punctured as soon as 

 they form, and I doubt whether any eggs are deposited in them so long as they are 

 too small to permit the weevil secreting itself within the involucre. 



At College Station the first fallen squares were found on June IT, 

 1904. The first weevils from these squares emerged June 23 and the 

 7036— Bull. 63—09 3 



