70 



larvae, or grubs, plaj- havoc with so manj- of our nuts. >Most of us 

 have had the experience of gathering in autumn rich stores of our 

 delicious native chestnuts. But how often our anticipations of boiled 

 and roasted feasts have been blighted. We have found that the chest- 

 nuts were like the manna which fed the children of Israel in the 

 wilderness. "When we left of them until the morning they bred 

 •worms and became foul." There are numerous cases in this country 

 where chestnuts in shij)ment have been seized .md condemned under 

 the i^rovisions of the Food and Drugs A^t. Usually the phraseology 

 of the libel has been "because the shipment consisted in part of 

 filthy animal substances, to wit, worms, worm excreta, worm-eaten 

 chestnuts and decayed chestnuts." Altogether the loss to chestnuts 

 from weevil injury is beyond computation. 



Tlie beetles which are the parents of the familiar worms in chest- 

 nuts are not commonly seen, or, if observed, they are not associated 

 witli the disgusting inhabitants Of the nut kernels. These beetles rep- 

 resent in their structure a very interesting adaptation to a special end. 

 The mouth is located at the tip of an enormously long snout, or probos- 

 cis, and the drill-like instrument is used for puncturing the thick 

 covering of various kinds of nuts so as to admit the egg into the ker- 

 nel upon wliich the young will feed. In some cases the mouth is sit- 

 uated at a greater distance from the eyes and other head appendages 

 than is the anal extremity of the insect. There are in the northern 

 part of this country two species which attack chestnuts, one wliich at- 

 tacks hickory-nuts, one which attacks hazel-nuts and about a dozen 

 which attack acorns. And here may be mentioned an interesting pe- 

 culiarity of the feeding habit which is decidedly to the advantage of 

 the nut-grower. Each species adheres closely to its own food jilant. 

 The hickor\'^nut weevil does not attack hazel-nuts nor the hazel-nut 

 weevil hickory-nuts. None of the acorn-infesting species will seek for 

 food in the nuts of chestnut, hickory or hazel. Once the chestnut 

 weevils are absent in a locality, there is no chance that oak trees will 

 serve as a means of spreading the weevils back into the locality. So 

 closely confined are these weevils to their particular food plants that 

 many of them distinguish between the different species of oak and 

 will ovijiosit only in certain kinds of acorns. 



All the diiferent species resemble one another in both the adult 

 and larval stages. There is also a general similarity in their be- 

 havior. I have recently discovered, however, a marked difference in 



