COTTON 
177 
the total yearly loss to the South through this 
insect probably amounts to a hundred million 
dollars. 
WHAT THE DESPERADO IS LIKE 
The Mexican Boll Weevil is not a ferocious- 
looking foe. It is only a small gray beetle, with a 
reddish-brown snout, and a body scarcely a quarter 
of an inch in length — the desperado that causes 
all this trouble and fright. It hardly seems possible 
that he could strike terror to the hearts of so many 
thousand people, or that he could attract so much 
space in the newspapers. As with men, it is not the 
man but the work done that calls for praise or pun- 
ishment; so with the boll weevil, it is not the insect 
(for you have seen scores all about you that look 
more capable of evil) but his methods of attack, 
his numbers, that have alarmed the millions of peo- 
ple dependent upon one of the greatest industries 
of the world. 
THE LIFE HISTORY 
As the life of one man is the history of all men, 
so is the life of one of these insects the life of all. 
And clearly to understand him and his destructive 
work, we must follow the life history through its 
cycle, for it is during one of the intermediate stages 
that the greatest trouble is done. 
Let us take him when his work for the year is 
over: when his evil deeds for the season are ended, 
and follow him sufficiently close and far enough for 
observation purposes, since that is the only way 
we can fully understand his life. 
The weevil has done its work for the season. 
