INTRODUCTION. 



This bulletin contains all of the reports from the Agents of the Divis- 

 ion for the season of 1886 with the exception of those from Mr. Coquil- 

 lett and Mr. Koebele on remedies for the Cottony Cushion-scale of 

 California (Icerya purchasi Maskell), that of Mr. Webster on insects 

 affecting grains, which will be published in the Annual Report of the 

 Department, and that of Mr. Ashmead on insects injurious to garden 

 crops in Florida, which is reserved for the next bulletin. 



Mr. Bruner's report on locusts in Texas during the spring of 1886 is 

 interesting in its local bearing and from the similarity of this outbreak 

 of non-migratory or partially migratory species in the far Southwest to 

 that in the extreme Northeast described in our Annual Report for 

 1883. 



Miss Murtfeldt's notes from Missouri, Mr. Al wood's report on some 

 injurious insects from Ohio, and Mr. Bruner's report on Nebraska in- 

 sects are simply short accounts of the prominent injurious insects of 

 this particular season in their respective localities. Dr. Packard's 

 fourth report on insects injurious to forest and shade trees contains an 

 account of a new and important enemy of spruce cones, and consider- 

 able matter which is new and of interest both from the entomological 

 and from the forestry standpoints. 



Mr. Webster's experiments upon the effect of the puncture of certain 

 plant- bugs were undertaken with a view of settling the disputed ques- 

 tion as to whether these punctures are poisonous. The experiments in 

 the main prove such a poisonous effect, and 1 may here state, without 

 going into a general discussion of the subject, that while in Columbus, 

 Ohio, in May, 1886, I found the immature forms of Poecilocapsus l-vit- 

 tatus blighting the young shoots of both Gooseberry and Currant, and 

 that in this case the poisonous nature of the puncture was unmistak- 

 able. The punctured shoots were without exception blasted and dis- 

 torted. 



Mr. Alwood's tests with insecticides upon garden insects were under- 

 taken as a continuation of those recorded in Bulletin No. 11 of the di- 

 vision, and will be of interest both on account of the new locality and 

 on account of several new substances experimented with. 



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