Entomological Notes. 303 



any or all the means recommended are less than those necessary to 

 secure a crop of anything else, and we do not make any effort, we 

 should certainly not complain of the losses incurred. 



Apple Curculio, Anlhonomus quadrigibus, Say. — Complaints 

 are occasionally made of the gnarly, deformed condition of apples 

 and pears, and wonder is frequently expressed, even by old hands 

 in fruit raising, as to what can be the cause. Little, if any of the 

 trouble may have been noticed for some years previous, when all 

 at once there comes a season in which the fruit is so badly injured 

 as to greatly lessen the value of the crop. Old and well known 

 varieties are sometimes so distorted as to be recognized with diffi- 

 culty. Instead of the usual round, smooth form, they are very 

 much dwarfed in size, irregular in shape, with ridge3, humps and 

 depressions here and there, and in each depression a small, black 

 dot is seen, looking as though the surface of the apple had been 

 drawn down by a thread, as in a well-stuffed cushion. Coming 

 so suddenly, and producing so great a change and loss in the 

 fruit, it occasions much surprise to those not acquainted with the 

 real cause, which we fear includes the majority of our farmers 

 and fruit raisers. If they had taken careful observation, especi- 

 ally of the pear and native crab and thorn apples, they would 

 have seen more or less of this trouble every fruit season, and the 

 sudden appearance and extent of the evil would then have been 

 to them much less a matter of surprise. 



The general belief is, that this condition is caused by the sting 

 of 3ome poisonous insect when the fruit is small, but what the 

 species is, which one of the many insect enemies is the guilty 

 cause, few are able to tell. Most of them may have heard of the 

 apple Curculio, and have seen the work of the plum Curculio. 

 They find that when the plum is stung, an egg is laid, which 

 hatches, and the plum drop3 off, and soon rots or withers up, but 

 on examination of the stings in the apple or pear, they find in a 

 great majority of cases no signs of an egg or anything to denote 

 that one had ever been deposited there. In the few instances 

 where there are signs of a worm having been at the core, it re- 

 sembles, and is often judged to be the work of the codling moth ; 

 but the apple still hangs to the tree, and continues to grow, 



