INSECTS INJURIOUS TO ORCHARD TREES 427 



and tubercles. The head is produced into a long snout. The 

 female beetle hibernates under leaves or rubbish, and as soon 

 as the fruit is formed commences to lay her eggs in it in small 

 holes that she makes with her snout. After laying her eggs 

 she makes a small crescent-shaped cut in the skin of the fruit. 

 This characteristic mark has suggested the common name 

 "little Turk" for this pest. The larvae usually feed around 

 the pit, often causing the fruit to drop. When full grown they 

 crawl out, pupate in the ground, and the adult beetles, which 

 issue three or four weeks later, feed on the ripening fruit, often 

 doing much damage before they 

 seek out a suitable hiding place 

 in which to pass the winter. 



As the beetles have the habit 

 of "playing possum" when 

 alarmed many of them may be 

 caught by jarring the tree with a 



padded club and causing them to FIG. 200. The plum cur- 

 j 1.1. L i. i culio, Conotrachelus nenuphar. 



drop to a canvas that has been (Enlarged; after Slingerland.) 

 spread under the tree. Some 



fruit growers use curculio catchers made by stretching a 

 canvas on a frame that is mounted on wheels, a slit being 

 left in one side to allow the apparatus to be wheeled against 

 the trunks of the trees. Recent experiments seem to indicate 

 that spraying the leaves with arsenate of lead may be a satis- 

 factory method of control as the beetles feed for awhile on the 

 foliage when they first issue in the spring. 



Tent -caterpillars (Malacosoma americana). The larva? of 

 many moths often occur in such numbers in the orchard that 

 they quite strip the trees of their foliage. Among the most 

 conspicuous of this group of pests are the tent-caterpillars, 

 so-called on account of their habit of living together in colonies 

 and spinning a large web or tent in which or on which they 

 rest at night or at other times when not feeding. When full 

 grown each finds a convenient place to spin a thin, tough, white 

 cocoon from which, a few weeks later, the adult moth issues 

 and lays the eggs which are to remain on the trees over winter. 

 The eggs are laid in a mass usually on the smaller branches, 



