REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGIST AND BOTANIST 



175 



' buKgy 



bsj peas, 

 outside of the 



Fi;^. 2. — The Pea Weevil : all stages — shown of the 

 natural size and enlarged. 



SESSIONAL PAPER No. 16 



THE PEA WEEVIL OR 'PEA BUG' 

 (BriichuH pisorum, Linn.^. 



Attack. — A small, brownish -gray, very active beetle, one-ftfth of an inch long, with 

 fw-o conspicuous black spots on the end of the body, which emerges from seed peas in 



autumn or in spring, leaving a small round 

 hole. The insect is generally spoken of 

 under the incorrect name of ' Pea Bug,' 

 and infested peas, as 

 The egg is laid on the 

 young pod, and the grub on hatching eats 

 its way in and penetrates the nearest pea. 

 Here it remains until full grown, consum- 

 ing the interior of the pea and passing 

 through all its stages, from a white fleshy 

 grub to the pupa, and then to the perfect 

 beetle. Some of the beetles, the percent- 

 age varying with the season, escape from 

 the peas, occasionally as early as harvest 

 time, or during the autumn, and pass the winter hidden away under rubbish or about 

 barns and other buildings. As a rule, however, the larger proportion do not under 

 ordinary' circumstances leave the peas until the time when peas are sown the following 

 spring, and consequently may be cari-ied into new districts previously uninfestcd. It 

 may be added to this that the perfect insects fly easily and for long distances, and that 

 they are attracted by instinct to growing fields of peas, where they feed upon the foliage 

 and flowers of the plants until the young pods are formed. The beetles which leave the 

 peas in autumn and those which remain in the seeds till the following spring, all become 

 fully developed at the same time, which is about the middle of August, and all, whether 

 they winter outside the peas or inside the grain, die about the same time the following 

 season, viz., during the month of June. 



The life history and habits of the Pea "Weevil are so well known, and have been so 

 frequently explained to fanners and other pea growers that it may seem superfluous to 

 some for me again to draw attention to this matter. However, the loss at the present 

 time is so great and is increasing so rapidly year by year that it is, I believe, the most 

 important subject in connection with my oflicial work, which I have to-day to bring 

 before Canadian farmers ; and, as I fully believe that an enormous improvement can be 

 made without difliculty in the existing deplorable condition of affiiirs, sim.ply by 

 practising more universally methods which are well known to be effective and which 

 are to some extent used, the Hon. Minister of Agriculture has instructed me to do 

 everything in my power to urge everyone connected w'ith the growing, handling and 

 marketing of peas, to unite in one great effort to reduce the serious loss which is taking 

 place every year. If this can be done, I see no reason to doubt that even total extermi- 

 nation of this serious pest might be arrived at in a comparatively short time. There is 

 nothing new in the way of remedies, nor, indeed, are any better remedies than have been 

 known for many years, necessary. Since 1888 attention has been constantly drawn in 

 my reports to the remedies which have been found effective, but apparently little has 

 been done, and the insect has now increased so much in all the counties of the province 

 of Ontario, where formerly peas of the very finest quality were produced, and which lie 

 to the south of a line drawn from Kincardine on Lake Pluron, through Lake Simcoe and 

 Peterborough county about Fenclon Falls to Brockville, that pea growing is no longer 

 a paying industry. Moreover, from the eil\)rts made by seedsmen to obtain peas unin- 

 jured by the weevil, by having them grown in uninfested districts, the range of infesta- 

 tion has been widely spread in counties 13'ing to the north of this line, because seed peas 

 have been sent out for propagation for this purpose which had not been properly treated 

 before sowing so as to destroy the contained weevils. 



