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INSECT CONDITIONS IN PORTO RICO OCTOEER 1, 1931, TO JANUARY 31, 1932. 
M. D. Leonard 
Insular Experiment Station, Rio Piedras, Porto Rico. 
The coffee leaf rriner ( Leucoxitera coff eella Stainton) has been, 
according to Vicente Medina, Coffee Specialist at the Insular Experiment 
Station, more abundant during December, 1331, and January, 1932, than 
during the two previous months, o^ing to generally dry weather throughout 
the coffee-growing districts. 
A leaf skeletonizer ( Erenthi a pavonacella Clem. ) was reported by 
F. Sein, jr., as badly skeletonizing the leaves of Inga sp. an important 
coffee shade tree, throughout the coffee growing districts in general 
during December, 1931. This oest T**as generally present and badly skele- 
tonizing these shade trees on a large coffee farm in the vicinity of 
Adjuntas (the Hacienda Carmelita) in September, 1931. It had not pre- 
viously been recorded as injuring a plant of economic importance. 
The cotton leaf worm ( Alabama argillacea Hbn. ) was reported as 
present on cotton in small numbers but easily controlled by t^o appli- 
cations of poison on December 21, 1931, and January 15, 1932, respectively, 
and that in general throughout the South Coast up to February 1, 1932, 
it has apparently been almost negligible as far as the necessity for 
control measures was concerned. 
The pink boll *"orm ( Pectinoohora gossyoiella Saund. ), according to 
all renorts received has been very much less abundant and injurious to 
cotton in the whole South Coost during the period October, 1931, to and 
throughout January, 1932, than during January, 1931, for instance, when 
considerable percentages of infestation could be found. It has been 
suggested that a considerably greater rainfall this year than last dxiring 
the same neriod may have been a large factor in this decrease. As late 
as January 20, 1932, J. Pastor Rodriguez, Cotton Specialist at the 
Insular Experiment Station, reported that a 1-acre field which was badly 
infested last year no*" showed less than 1 per cent infested bolls and 
that a near-by field vas only about 5 oer cent infested. 
Owing to the extremely wet winter, the fall armyro^to ( Laphygm a 
frugiperda S. & A. ) has been exceptionally abundant, not only on corn, 
which one exoects, but also inside peooer fruits, in tomatoes, inside 
lima bean pods, and causing most injury to eggplant, burrowing in the 
stems and attacking the fruit. Eighty per cent of the fruit one week "as 
ruined by their feeding. (0. 17. Wolcott. ) 
The melon worm (Diarhania . yalinr -ta L. ) was causing considerable 
foliage injury on January i, 1932, to "" ung cassava melon vinos at T.oiza; 
moderate damage was observed tc squash foliage at iToga Alt a in November, 
1931, and to cucumber at Manati in January, 1932. In a *-ell-sprayed 
cucumber field at Barcelone.ta only slight damage was caused to the leaves. 
(A. S. Mills. ) 
