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Insect Life who desire them. The publication of the divisional series 
of circulars of information upon especially injurious insects, of Farm- 
ers' Bulletins upon special entomological topics, principally methods of 
treatment, and of occasional special reports, will be continued. 
Mistakes about the Cotton-Boll Weevil in Texas.— The tendency to give 
the same popular name to different animals in different parts of the 
country has frequently been productive not only of great confusion but 
of very considerable harm. A marked instance of this fact is seen in 
the case of the cotton -boll weevil recently imported from Mexico into 
Texas. Cotton planters in the South have for many years been accus- 
tomed to designate any piercing of the cotton boll by the term " sharp- 
shooter work." Several true bugs have been concerned in this damage, 
and as we have shown in Insect Life (vol. v, p. 150) several of the 
leaf-hoppers, and particularly Froconia undata and Homalodisca coagu- 
lata, also produce this damage to bolls. On the first appearance of 
the Mexican boll weevil in the vicinity of Brownsville the planters 
applied to it the term "sharpshooter," and this has operated to prevent 
alarm among the cotton growers in other parts of the State, since they 
say that the " sharpshooters," like the poor, are always with us. The 
indifference with which, until recently, prominent cotton planters have 
regarded the advent of this new weevil is due entirely to the fact that 
they have supposed that the reports of damage referred to the work 
of the older and well-known insects. We have given full details con- 
cerning this point in Circular No. 6, Second Series, of the Division of 
Entomology, recently issued from the press and widely distributed 
throughout the State of Texas. 
In our special note on page 281 of the last number of Insect Life 
we mentioned the fact that the Assistant Secretary of Agriculture had 
notified the governor of Texas of the serious nature of the Mexican 
weevil, and had urged the importance of immediate legislation provid- 
ing for quarantine and enforcement of remedial work. 
In transmitting his recommendations, the Assistant Secretary gave 
a brief review of what is known of the habits of the Mexican weevil, 
which has been contradicted in Texas by cotton planters, largely, we 
think, on account of the misunderstanding of the difference between 
the new weevil and the old sharpshooter. In the Galveston News for 
March 12, for instance, " a prominent Nueces County farmer" is reported 
to have said that the information sent out from this Department is 
entirely incorrect; that the weevil is never known to enter the boll 
except when the boll is very young; and that as soon as the weevil 
enters it the boll drops off; further, that the pest makes it a point to 
attack the square or bloom as soon as formed, thereby preventing the 
formation of the boll. The facts are, that the weevil attacks the boll 
at all times as long as it is green. Mr. Townsend has repeatedly found 
