NATURE OF INJURY. 13 
Bureau." Prof. E. I). Sanderson during the same year conducted 
observations on miscellaneous cotton insects in Texas, including sev- 
eral of the Ileteroptera. The results of his work on this subject 
have been incorporated in a Farmers' Bulletin of the Department of 
Agriculture 6 and in a regular bulletin of this Bureau. Plant-bugs 
attacking cotton in the Bismarck Archipelago and in German Easl 
Africa have been considered by Dr. Th. Kuhlgatz in a publication of 
the Berlin Zoological Museum in 1905.^ This report contains but few 
field notes outside of records of food plants. A valuable report on 
cotton stainers in the West Indies was published by Mr. H. A. Ballou 
in 1906/ 
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 
NATURE OF INJURY BY PLANT-BUGS. 
In beginning the investigation of plant-bugs destructive to the 
cotton boll one of the first steps found to be necessary was a study of 
the nature of the injury itself so that it might be identified positively 
or at least with reasonable certainty. As a result it has been more 
and more impressed upon the author that to the lack of an accurate 
knowledge of this subject is due the almost complete ignoring of 
these insects as cotton pests. In general the connection between the 
insects and the damage which results from their attacks is very 
obscure to the casual observer, and consequently seldom suspected. 
Even to an entomologist the damaged boll when dry gives by itself 
no direct evidence of the cause of its condition without reference to 
a field demonstration of the relation between the insects and the 
stained or shriveled locks. 
PUBLISHED DESCRIPTIONS OF THE EFFECT OF PLANT-BUG ATTACK ON COTTON BOLLS. 
In Glover's brief publication on this subject in the U. S. Agricul- 
tural Report for the year 1855 is to be found the earliest mention 
of plant-bugs — Pentatomids and Coreids — as possible producers of 
"rot" in cotton bolls and also of the nature of injury by the cotton 
stainer. This discussion, of the damage to cotton caused by the 
Coreidse, is the most complete that has been published, and in fact all 
later references to the subject are based directly or indirectly upon 
this except the report of Mr. Schwarz's observations in the Bahamas 
and the recent report by Mr. Ballou. Heretofore it seems to have 
been the popular belief in Florida that the principal damage to the 
«Bul. 54, Bur. Ent., CJ. S. Dept. A.gr., pp. L8 34 
6 Farmers' Bui. 223, U. S. Dept. Agr., pp. 20 21. 
c Bui. 57, Bur. Ent., U. S. Dept. Agr., pp. 1 1 19. 
<*Mittheilungen aus dem Zoologischen Museum in Berlin, 111 Band, I heft, pp. 
31-114. 
eWest Indian Bulletin, Vol. \ 11, No. 1. pp. (i 1 85. 
