Il8 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



received specimens on the first of June last, from my esteemed corres- 

 pondent, Mr. Huron Burt of Williamsburg, Callaway Co., Mo., with 

 the statement that it was doing great damage to the plums in that locality, 

 though the little Turk was scarcely met with. There is a plum known 

 there as "Missouri Nonsuch" which, though said to be Curculio proof, 

 is worked upon very badly by the Gouger. 



The Plum Gouger is often found on wild crab trees, and may, like the 

 Plum Curculio, occasionally deposit and breed in pip fruit; but it is par- 

 tial to smooth-skinned stone fruit such as prunes, plums, and nectarines, 

 and it does not even seem to relish the rougher-skinned peach. 



OFTEX MISTAKEN FOR THE PLUM CURCULIO. 



It has often been confounded with the Plum Curculio, and was once 

 supposed by our friend L. C. Francis of Springfield, Ills., to be the male 

 of that species. We all have a right to suppose what we please, and as 

 long as our suppositions are not thrust on the public for ascertained facts, 

 they can do no possible harm. But Mr, J. P. Williamson, of Des Moines 

 County, Iowa, is not satisfied with supposing this or some other straight- 

 snouted weevil, to be the female of the Plum Curculio, but, in a last sum- 

 mer's issue of the Prairie Farttier^ not only emphatically speaks of it as 

 such, but, finding that these supposed females frequent the trees two weeks 

 earlier than the males, ( ?) he concludes for some unexplained reason, 

 that the sole object of visiting the fruit is for the deposition of eggs; and 

 straightway hatches the theory that the Plum Curculio can do no harm 

 till the males appear!! Consequently, instead of jarring our trees as long 

 as fruit remains on them, we are informed by Mr. W^illiamson that it is 

 only necessary to jar them about six weeks. 



And thus it always is with men who do not sufficiently understand 

 the absolute importance of care and caution in reading Nature's 

 secrets: from supposition to assumption; from assumption to theory; 

 from theory to advice, which — it is unnecessary here to say — is of a most 

 pernicious character. 



I ITS TIME OF APPEARANCE. 



This beetle appears in the spring about the same time as the Plum 

 Curculio, but as no eggs are deposited after the stone of the fruit 

 becomes hard, and as its lai*va requires a longer period to mature than 

 that of the latter, its time of depositing is shorter, and the old beetles 

 generally die off' and disappear before the new ones eat their way out of 

 the fruit, which they do during August, September, and October, accord- 

 ing to the latitude. 



ITS NATURAL HISTORY. 



Though we have no absolute proof of the fact, analogy would lead 

 us to believe, and in my own mind there is no doubt, that this insect 

 passes the winter in the beetle state, and that it is, like the other species, 

 single-brooded. Both sexes bore cylindrical holes in the fruit for food, 

 and these holes are of the exact diameter of the snout, and consequently 

 somewhat larger than those of the Apple Curculio. These holes are 



