304 



Wisconsin State Horticultural Society. 



though slowly, through the season. Not being acquainted with 

 the habits and manner of work of the apple Curculio, the real 

 culprit, he escapes their notice and they give the discredit to some 

 other enemy. 



This beetle, like the plum Curculio, is a native of this country 

 and was seen at a very early period on the Wild Crab and Thorn 

 Apple trees. Until a comparatively recent date their depredations 

 were mainly confined to these varieties of the apple, but they have 

 gradually acquired a taste for better fruit and seem to be steadily 

 increasing in numbers and destructiveness. The perfect beetle is 

 of a dull brown color, with reidish brown and ashy gray shading 

 <m the wing covers. On these wing covers are looated four humps, 

 which are peculiar to it, and which give it a distinctive name. 

 Like the plum Curculio, it is a snout beetle, but differs from it in 

 the form, length and position of its snout. With the plum Curcu- 

 lio, it hangs down and can be folded back to the body, but cannot 



be extended in front; it is also 

 short and stout: but while the aD- 

 pie Curculio is much smaller, its 

 snout is much longer and more 

 slender, in proportion to size of the 

 insect. In the male it is about half 

 the length of the body, but in the 

 female it is fully as long as its 

 whole body ; in both it is curved 

 in form and extends forward in nearly a straight line with the 

 body and cannot be folded back. 



In the above cut (Fig. S) b gives a side view of the full grown 

 beetle, c the back view ; a represents the natural size, and the line 

 at the side of c the full length of beetle and its snout. 



The apple Curculio, like the plum, is single brooded and passes 

 the winter in the perfect beetle state. It makes its appearance 

 in the spring, the last of May or the first of June ; usually a little 

 later than the plum Curculio. With their long, slender snouts 

 they attack the fruit, both male and female, drilling small, round 

 holes almost a tenth of an inch in depth, but scooped out much 

 broader at the base. Most of these holes are made for the purpose 



Fig. 8. Apple Curculio. 



