82 TKAXSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



Mr. Flagg — I would also suggest a committee on wines. 



The motion of Mr. Brown was adopted. 



The President then announced the follow^ing as the committees : 



On Fears, etc. — Messrs. Brown, Earle and Douglas. 



On Apples — Messrs. Kimball, Kinney, and A. Brj-ant, Jr. 



On Wines — Dr. Hull and Messrs. Shephard and Hammond. 



THE CURCULIO. 



Mr. C. Y. Eiley then read a paper on CureuliO; as follows : 



Ladies and Gentlemen : You have invited me to read an essay on the Plum 

 Curculio. I accepted the invitation with the intention of preparing an exhaustive 

 paper on the subject. But the sudden death of my esteemed associate and your State 

 Entomologist, the late Benj. D. Walsh, so completely upset my arrangements, and so 

 increased my labors, that I have found time only to substitute instead the following 

 hasty notes. 



So much has been written on the habits of this one little insect, and on the best 

 means of protecting our fruits from its injurious work, that one almost tires of repeat- 

 ing those established facts in its history which, at first thought, it strikes one that all 

 interested should know. But this is a bustling, shifting, progressive Avorld, and there 

 are yet some mooted points to be settled in the natural history of our Curculio. 



"When an experienced man is taken fi'om our midst, the fimd of wisdom and the 

 store of knowledge which he had accumulated during a long and biisy life -time, are in 

 a great measure buried vrith him. His jounger followers profit as much as they can 

 by his recorded experience, but they must necessarily go over the same ground Avhich 

 he had been over before. Facts in Natiure will consequently have to be repeated for 

 aU time to come; but it should be our object to reach beyond the facts already known, 

 to obtain a knowledge of all things as far as the mind is capable of, and to delve still 

 more deeply into hidden truths, so that by observation and perseverance, we may be 

 enabled to read aright the yet unread parts of that great recorded book, which was 

 printed, paged, collated- and bound by the fingers of Omnipotence! Besides, there 

 are actually many fiiiit-growers who do not know a Curculio when they see one. 

 Thus thi'ee different correspondents have, during the past summer, requested a 

 description of the little pest, because, as they contended, they were not acciuainted 

 with its appearance. And yet one of these gentlemen, as I afterwards ascertained 

 from personal observation, was, at the veiy time when he penned his question, suffer- 

 ing from injuries caused by the "Little Turk. " 



In this brief paper on tlie Curculio I shall, therefore, necessarily have to repeat many 

 of the facts Avhich were published in your own Transactions for 1867, and of those 

 which may be found in the First Annual Keport on the Entomology of Missouri. 



ESTABLISHED FACTS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CURCULIO. 



In order to lay this question before you in the very clearest light, it will be best to 

 divide this paper into two different parts . In the first part we will give only those 



