YoL VII. No. 4.] 
INSECT LIFE. 
[Issued March. 1895. 
SPECIAL NOTES. 
The New Cotton-boll Weevil. — Under the heading " A Xew Cotton 
Insect in Texas" we mentioned in the last number of Insect Life the 
introduction of Anthonomus grandis from Mexico into Texas cotton 
fields, and promised a more detailed account of the insect in this num- 
ber. The matter seems so important that Mr. C. H. Tyler Townsend 
has been employed as a special agent, and in December was sent on a 
preliminary investigating tour through the infested region. He will 
remain at Brownsville, Tex., during the remaining months of the fiscal 
year engaged in following out the complete life history of the species. 
Mr. Townsend has submitted a preliminary report, which we publish in 
this number, and which will afford a good basis for future investiga- 
tions, and will at the same time inform cotton planters thoroughly of 
what is known down to the present time. The Honorable Assistant Sec- 
retary of Agriculture has notified the governor of Texas of the serious 
nature of the outlook, and has urged the importance of immediate leg- 
islation which will provide for quarantining and the enforcement of 
remedial work. 
Florida Insects and the December Freeze — Press dispatches of Decem- 
ber 30 and 31, in referring to the great damage done to the orange 
and other crops in Florida by the extraordinarily low temperature 
of December 29, stated incidentally that the freeze also caused great 
mortality among injurious insects. Mr. H. G. Hubbard, of this 
office, went to -Florida the last week in December, and has written us 
that the newspaper reports were not exaggerated. During the first 
week in January he made observations upon the effect of the cold upon 
injurious insects. Gardens and fruit were all frozen, and the orange 
trees were seriously injured, but not all killed. Green leaves and ten- 
der vegetation were frozen so suddenly and completely that in many 
cases they dried up without changing color. The orange trees changed 
from green to brown. Unnumbered millions of insects were killed by 
the cold. All the cockroaches in sight were destroyed, even those in 
houses, and only those will survive which happen to have been excep- 
tionally well sheltered. All young scale insects which have not passed 
281 
