54 PLANT-BUGS INJURIOUS TO COTTON BOLLS. 
adults — 10 females and 9 males — in confinement at the laboratory 
at Dallas furnished some data on the subject. Shortly after the 
middle of November no more food was provided and dead leaves 
were put in with the bugs in the lantern-globe breeding cages which 
were in an open shelter protected only from rain. The lot included 
a specimen (female) which became adult on August 14, and one 
which became adult on August 16 (male), 2 females which were 
collected at Clarendon, Tex., on September 19, and 8 males and 6 
females collected at Barstow, Tex., on October 13. On December 
1 all were alive; on December 19, when next noted, all were alive 
except one of each sex collected on October 13; on January 17 one 
of the same lot was observed crawling in a cage, the others being 
hidden in the leaves, while on March 8 an examination showed that 15 
were dead and 4 had escaped during the writer's two months' absence 
from the laboratory. Whether or not these four specimens which 
escaped survived the winter is of course unknown, but as they left 
the cage after January 1 it may be presumed that they were more 
vigorous than the others. Perhaps in the field the bugs are capable 
of finding more suitable hibernating conditions than were provided. 
In general, Pentatomids hibernate among dead weeds, in crevices 
under the loose bark of posts and trees, and in rubbish of various 
kinds. Uhler's green plant-bug is reported a to burrow in loose soil 
for the purpose of hibernating, and a similar observation 6 has been 
made in the case of the predaceous bug Podisus serieventris Uhl. 
Doubtless many Pentatomids, like other insects, attempt to hibernate 
in places where their chances of surviving the winter are slight, and 
it seems doubtful that Pentatomids which bury into the soil often 
survive the winter except where there is little or no rainfall. 
Pentatomids are among the earliest insects to emerge from hiber- 
nation in the spring, although apparently only a small percentage 
passes the hibernating period successfully. Both sexes hibernate 
in many, if not in all, species. Regarding the appearance of the 
conchuela in the spring at Tlahualilo, Mr. J. P. Conduit, under date 
of March 10, 1906, in a letter to the writer says: "In spite of the cold 
weather we have had, the conchuela is still with us, and two or three 
live ones have already been picked up in various places." In north- 
ern Mexico and western Texas the first eggs are probably deposited 
shortly after the average daily mean temperature becomes con- 
stantly above 70° F. Ordinarily, this would occur early in April. 
The slow rate of production, however, in April and May temperature 
seems to prevent a large increase in numbers of the insects before 
June 1. 
a Bui. 57, South Dak. Exp. Sta., p. 40, 1898. 
& The Gypsy Moth, by Edward H. Forbush and Charles H. Fernald, Mass. Board of 
Agr., 1896, p. 403. 
