INSECTS. 
03 
INSECTS FOUND UPON THE BOLL 
During the time that cotton is maturing its seed-vessels, there are 
several insects of the “plant-hug” species found both upon the 
young and the old bolls; hut whether these insects have anything 
to do in producing the rot, is a question which cannot he easily 
answered before further information shall have been collected upon 
the subject. I will here simply give the results of Rome experiments 
made by me this season (1855) to determine whether any of these 
insects do or do not suck the sap from the bolls. In the month ot 
October, several plant-hugs were caught, and placed singly in glass 
bottles, containing young and middle-sized bolls, and all of those 
hereafter described were observed with their piercers penetrating the 
bolls, and busily engaged sucking out the sap. 
THE GREEN PLANT-BUG. 
( Pentatoma ?) 
This insect is about seven-tenths of an inch in length, rather broad, 
and of a bright-green color ; the head is furnished with two ocelli on 
the upper part, the eyes are brown, and the scutellum, or triangular 
place between the wing-covers, is very large and also of a green color ; 
the upper part of the body, which is flattened, is margined with an 
edge ot yellow, and has a black spot on the yellow edge of each seg- 
ment. The piercer, which is long and jointed, when not in use, is 
recurved under the thorax ; the antennas are five-jointed. 
An insect was described by Mr. Bailey, of Monticello, in Florida, 
(PI. VIII. fig. 5,) as being very numerous in his cotton-fields ; and 
his overseer informed me that he had seen it in the very act of piero- 
ing a boll, which he afterwards cut open and found that the puncture 
had penetrated through the outer shell, or case of the boll, to the 
ootton, and that the mark where the piercer had penetrated was dis- 
colored. _ Those I had in confinement certainly were frequently seen 
with their trunks inserted into bolls, and sucking the sap. 
The larva is very similar to the perfect insect in shape and color, 
but smaller in size, and is not furnished with wings. The pupa pos- 
sesses rudiments of wings, only, and it is the perfect insect alone which, 
by means of a pair of under-wings, concealed beneath the wing-cases, 
is able to fly about and propagate its kind. 
TOE GREY PLANT-BUG. 
{Pentatoma ?) 
The spotted plant-bug (PI. VIII. fig. 6) is very much of the same 
shape as that last described, but is not so broad. It is grey, and 
marked with black dots and lines ; it is also smaller than the former 
being only three-fifths of an inch in length ; the outer margin of the 
thorax is somewhat pointed or angular; the scutellum, broad and 
