THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 29 



butternut weevil appears so closely like it that it has often been pronounced 

 a large plum weevil. 



No other member of this genus has been found attacking as many 

 fruits as this plum weevil. Most species confine their depredations to a 

 single kind of plant, like the quince weevil, Conotrachelus cratcegi, which 

 deposits Its eggs in that fruit. The plum weevil is, however, a general 

 fruit weevil, attacking, with only an occasional marked preference, every 

 species of fruit in the botanical genera, Frunus, Fyrus, Cydonia, and 

 some other species in other genera of the Rose family; and Miss M E 

 Murtfeldt states* that she has bred them from gooseberries. In this 

 connection it is singular that the grape has not suffered from its crescent 

 thrust. Finally, from its habit of breeding in the " black knot " of the 

 plum, It must be considered the most omnivorous of all the 1050 species 

 of weevils now known in N. America. 



LIFE HISTORIES OF FIVE SPECIES OF SCOPELOSOMA. 



BY ROLAND THAXTER, KITTERY POINT, MAINE. 



During the spring of the past year I was fortunate enough to procure 

 eggs of the following species of Scopdosoma, and succeeded in rearing a 

 sufl^cient number of each to ensure an accurate observation of their larval 

 differences. The matter is of some interest, as it settles beyond question 

 the specific difference between the two species known in collections as 

 6'. Walkeri and S. vifinlenta, which have been enumerated as varieties of 

 the mythical sidus in recent lists. That one of these species is really sidus 

 I think there can be little doubt ; but which should be referred to it is 

 somewhat uncertain. 



My friend, Mr. Chatfield, has had the kindness to send me for com- 

 parison with my own material, a specimen of a Scope/osoma taken by him 

 at Albany, which, he informs me, has been pronounced by Mr Grote to 

 be with little doubt "a veritable sidus." On comparing my material of 

 Walkert (determined thus by Mr. Grote) with this specimen, I find no 

 essential differences between the two, Mr. Chatfield's specimen being 

 somewhat more clearly marked and darker than usual, and most decidedly 

 no ^'- d'un rouge de brique * uni, avec les l ignes a peine distinctes." 



* Kept. Entomologist U. S., C. V. Riley, 1881-1882, p. 66. 



