THE < OXCFIUELA. 23 
Due credit has not hitherto been given plant-bugs for their part 
in diminishing the yield of cotton and lowering the quality of the 
lint. This failure to connect the injury with the cause, as has been 
pointed out, is largely due to a lack of understanding of the nature 
of the injury, as well as to the fact that plant-bugs have always been 
found in cotton fields and except in rare instances no good criterion 
for judging the amount of loss has been afforded. Field agents of 
this Bureau, engaged in investigating cotton insects, frequently have 
met cotton growers in northern Texas who ascribed the shriveled 
condition of the locks of bolls damaged by these bugs to dry weather. 
In Florida some cotton growers have explained damage of tins same 
kind as due to the prevalence of wet weather. 
Summarily it may be stated that locally plant-bugs frequently 
cause large losses and throughout large sections of the cotton States 
cause small but appreciable losses which it is important should be 
determined in a less cursory manner than heretofore. 
PLANT-BUGS AS DISSEMINATORS OF PLANT DISEASES. 
Various plant-bugs have been suspected of transmitting fungous 
and bacterial diseases of plants, but as yet there appears to have 
been no careful investigation of this matter. That the transmission 
of the spores of cotton boll anthracnose (Colletotriclium gossypii 
Southworth) by plant-bugs from one boll to another is possible 
requires no demonstration. An investigator would rather be con- 
cerned with the extent to which these cotton-frequenting insects are 
responsible for the spread of the disease. It is highly probable that 
the bacillus of the cotton boll "rot" (Bacillus gossypiaus Stedman) 
may be disseminated to a greater or less extent by means of plant- 
bugs whose mouth setae would furnish a means of direct entrance of 
the organism to the interior of the boll. The entire subject is one 
which offers a field for interesting and valuable research, but for the 
present no estimate can be made of the damage to cotton indirectly 
caused by plant-bugs through dissemination of pathogenic fungi and 
bacteria. 
THE CONCHTJELA. 
I Pentatoma ligata Say.) 
(PI. I. fig. l.) 
HISTORY. 
The conchuela ° was described in 1831, but first became known as 
an insect of economic importance when, in August, L902, specimens 
were received from a correspondent of the Bureau of Entomology, 
" This is the common name used for this insect by the natives of the Lacuna Dis- 
trict of Mexico. It is a Spanish won! meaning "little shell" and is based on a fancied 
resemblance to a shell. 
