10
SUGAR-CANE BORERS
tended primarily for workers not especially interested in entomology, and so have been written with as few technical details and terms as possible. To Mr. and Mrs. E. F. Atkins, whose generosity afforded the opportunity to make this study, I tender grateful thanks. To the many kind folk at Soledad, and to Mr. and Mrs. W. E. Leonard in particular, I am deeply indebted for invaluable assistance in my work and for an unfailing hospitality which rendered my visit delightful. My acknowledgments are due and gratefully given to the specialists of the United States Bureau of Entomology for authoritative determination of the insects herein discussed, and to my father, Mr. W. Salt of Calgary, for preparing my photographs for reproduction. I am deeply grateful to Mr. J. G. Myers, my congenial companion in Cuba, for kindly criticism and invaluable assistance during the course of the investigation. To Dr. W. M. Wheeler and Professor C. T. Brues of the Bussey Institution, Harvard University, I wish to express my very deep indebtedness for valuable suggestions in the preparation of this report. Finally, I most heartily thank Dr. Thomas Barbour of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Cambridge, whose encouragement has been to me personally an inspiration and whose enthusiasm for tropical biology has placed all future workers at Harvard House, Soledad, under a real and lasting obligation. RECOGNITION OF THE BORERS
Among the insect pests of sugar-cane in Cuba the most important from an economic standpoint are those familiarly known as “ borers.� Though belonging to the most diverse groups in the system of classification, these insects have in common the habit of boring into the sweet succulent stalk of the cane, thus providing themselves at once with nourishment and a place to live. Four of these borers, belonging to three different orders of insects, came under the personal observation of the writer when, during the early part of 1925, he was privileged to visit the Harvard Biological Laboratory at Soledad, near Cienfuegos,