THE MEXICAN COTTON BOLL WEEVIL 



GEEEEAL CONSIDERATIONS. 



HISTORY 



There is very little certainty regarding the history of the Mexican 

 cotton boll weevil before its presence in Texas came to the attention of 

 the Bureau of Entomology in 1894. The species was described by 

 Boheman in 1843 from specimens received from Yera Cruz, and it was 

 recorded by Suffrian in 1871 as occurring at Cardenas and San Cristobal,, 

 in Cuba. Written documents in the archives at Monclova, in the State 

 of Coahuila, Mexico, indicate that the cultivation of cotton was prac- 

 tically abandoned in the vicinity of that town about the year 1818, or 

 at least that some insect caused very great fears that it would be nec- 

 essary to abandon the cultivation of cotton. A rather careful inves- 

 tigation of the records makes it by no means clear that the insect was 1 

 the boll weevil, although there is a rather firmly embedded popular 

 notion in Mexico, as well as in the southern United States, that the 

 damage must have been perpetrated b}^ that species. As far as the 

 accounts indicate, it might have been the bollworm (Heliothls ohsoleta} 

 or the cotton caterpillar {Alabama argillacea). 



From the time of the note by Suffrian regarding the occurrence of 

 the weevil in Cuba in 1871 up to 1885 there has been found no pub- 

 lished record concerning it. In 1885, however, C. V. Riley, then 

 Entomologist of the Department of Agriculture, published in the 

 report of the Commissioner a very brief note to the effect that AntJio- 

 nomus grandis had been reared in the Department from dwarfed cot- 

 ton bolls sent by Dr. Edward Palmer from northern Mexico. This is 



a The following is a copy of the original letter by Doctor Palmer: 



Eagle Pass, Tex. , September 28, 1SS0. 

 The Commissioner op Agriculture. 



Sir: Previous to leaving Monclova, Mexico, for this place I visited some field® 

 planted with cotton. Seeing but few bolls of cotton, examination revealed the cause. 

 An insect deposits its egg and the boll falls; thus some plants had only two or three,, 

 others five or six bolls, while underneath the leaves, in the shade thereof, were 

 many that had fallen there in the moist shade to lay for the larva to hatch. Please 



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 16780— No. 51—05 2 



