378 Bulletin 148. 



The Characteristics and Appearance of the Insect. 



Like all beetles, this quince curculio passes through four different 

 stages during its life — the egg, larva or grub, pupa, and the adult 

 or beetle. It is injurious to the quince in two of its stages. The 

 beetles " sting " the fruits, forming many of the familiar '' knotty " 

 places, as shown in figure 186; and " wormy " quinces (figure 194) 

 are the work of the grubs or larvae. Quince growers should thus 

 familiarize themselves with these two stages of the insect. The other 

 stages — the egg and pupa — are discussed later on in connection with 

 the story of the life of the pest. 



The beetle or curculio. — The pictures of the curculio, natural size 

 and enlarged (side and back views) in figure 187, and still more 

 enlarged in the frontispiece, will give one a very good idea of the 

 general appearance of this stage of the insect. It is somewhat larger 

 than the common plum curculio, has a comparatively longer snout, 

 and is very "broad-shouldered."* For comparison, we have intro- 

 duced, in figure 188, an enlarged picture of the plum curculio, the 

 pest with which every successful plum, peach or cherry grower is 

 usually already too f amihar. Note the peculiar elevation s or " humps " 

 on the back of the plum curculio. There are no similar elevations on 

 the quince curculio, whose wing covers are simply longitudinally 

 ^ribbed with seven narrow ridges, with two rows of punctures in each 

 space between these ridges. Its general color is of a rather uniform 

 brownish gray, mottled more or less with white, especially on the 

 thorax. 



The peculiar long snout possessed by this quince curculio, in com- 

 mon with all the other members of the immense family of snout-beetles, 

 is of peculiar construction, which well adapts it to the many uses to 

 which the beetle puts it. This snout is simply a prolongation of the 

 head, but it is interesting and peculiar from the fact that the mouth- 

 parts of the insect are out at the snout's tip, and the antennae also 

 arise from near the tip. As can be seen in the frontispiece, the 

 antennae can be neatly folded back for half their length in a little 

 groove along the snout ; the snout of the female is a little longer and 



*LeConte and Horn state that this curculio is " broader and more squat 

 than any other of our species, and it is easily distinguished by the humeri 

 being obliquely truncate, with the outer angle dentiform." 



