The Quince Curculio. 



3^3 



m feeding. Just to the left of these large holes, the fuzzy coating was 

 scraped away to show two little holes eaten through the skin, which 

 lead into similar large pits in the flesh. When we saw the beetles 

 feeding, in May, 1896, the fuzzy covering was quite thick (figure 191), 

 and when the beetle withdrew 

 its snout the coating closed up, 

 entirely obscuring the hole in 

 the skin, so that it was impos- 

 sible, in many cases, to de- 

 termine if a fruit had been eaten, 

 without first scraping off this 

 fuzzy covering. Oftentimes the 

 constricted portion of the fruit, 

 near the stem, will be riddled 

 with holes where the curculios 

 have fed. 



We have no positive evidence, 

 but our observations indicate 

 that the pits and hard kernels 

 which are so famihar to quince 

 growers in the '* knotty " fruits, 

 are the direct result of the 

 feeding habits of the curcuHo. 

 We beheve the holes thus made 

 in the skin and fruit when it 

 is small finally result in the 

 " knots " of the mature fruit. 



If this be true, the insect injures the market value of the fruits quite 

 as much in its curculio or beetle stage as it does later as a grub. 



Egg-laying. — After feeding on fruit for about a week, as described 

 above, the beetles copulate and soon begin laying eggs. In 1896 

 the eggs must have been laid early in June, while in 1897 egg laying 

 did not take place until early in August. The eggs are laid in little 

 pits made by the mother beetles in the fruit. A small hole is first 

 eaten through the skin, and then a pit about the size of a half pea is 

 gouged out of the flesh. These pits thus made are indistinguishable 

 from the ones made by the beetles in feeding, so that it is impossible 

 to tell on the surface of a fruit whether the pin-holes through the skin 



191. — Young quince, ivith small flap of 

 the thick fuzzy coating of the skin 

 turned back. 



