INTRODUCTION. 9 



present form is suited to cultivation in the United States, but it has, 

 without any doubt, new and significant characters which must be 

 regarded as factors in cultural solutions of the weevil problem. (PI. 

 II, fig. 1.) 



Although cotton was not found to be planted as a regular field cul- 

 ture in any localities in Guatemala where the keleps do not exist, 

 small quantities are produced in the interior plateau region about 

 Rabinal by what may be called dooryard cultivation, and these, too, 

 have suggested cultural factors and expedients which may not be 

 without practical bearing. 



The present paper can claim to make only a beginning in the 

 bionomic study of the question, but it shows at least that the weevil 

 problem has many avenues of approach on the botanical side. 



The cotton of Guatemala and neighboring countries has maintained 

 an existence, at least, in the presence of the weevils, and has suffered 

 an acute natural selection with reference to its ability to protect itself 

 against the weevil or to secure the assistance of allies, such as the 

 keleps. That no commercial cotton crop is raised or exported from 

 such districts does not prove that they are unworthy of scientific 

 investigation, or that they are not likely to yield materials and sug- 

 gestions of practical vahie in meeting the invasion of weevils which 

 is now so serious a menace to the cotton industry of the United States. 



Some of these weevil-resisting adaptations have been of use in 

 securing for the cotton the assistance of the keleps. There are others 

 which, if properly utilized, might render these interesting insects 

 unnecessary. Tropical America has been serving for thousands of 

 years, evidently, as a laboratory for this class of experiments. Texas 

 was invaded only yesterday — a decade ago. Xow that we are forced 

 to engage in the strife, the first preliminary should be, it would seem, 

 to take stock of the weapons which nature has forged. 



The present report was planned and partly written before the dis- 

 covery of the true nature of the best of the weevil-resisting adapta- 

 tions — the proliferation of the tissues of the buds and bolls. Some 

 of the characters here described may have no value except as sug- 

 gestions, but taken together they may be of interest as an outline of 

 the results of the very long period of selection to which the presence 

 of the boll weevil has subjected the Central American varieties of 

 the cotton plant. 



have erroneously confused it with the Old World species Gossypium herhaceunu 

 which is not cultivated in the United States, though often so reported. 



The Egyptian and Kidney cottons belong to the Sea Island series, and are of 

 American origin. The Kidney cottons seem not to have been cultivated on a 

 commercial scale, but they are very widely distributed in tropical America. The 

 name refers to the fact that the seeds cf each compartment of the boll are 

 grown together into a small compact mass, in shape suggesting a kidney. 



