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grul)s hatching from tliese eggs feed on the nuts and cause them to 

 drop. The grubs continue to feed inside the nuts after they have 

 fallen to the ground, and on becoming full grown, eat circular holes 

 through the shell and work their way into the ground for some distance. 

 There they construct small cells in which they pass the winter. Late 

 the next season, they emerge as adult weevils. There are some ex- 

 ceptions to this general life history, a few of the insects requiring two 

 years to complete their growth, and occasional individuals appearing 

 earlier in the season than late summer. 



Control Measures 



The Nut Weevils are, on the whole, very difficult insects to con- 

 trol. They are all native of this country, and most of them have 

 several food plants. Brooks in his excellent bulletin on these insects, 

 (West Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station, Bull. 128), recom- 

 mends fumigating the dropjaed nuts with carbon bisulphid before 

 the weevils have left the nuts and gone into the ground. 



Nut Curcnlio. Another somewhat similar class of insects which 

 attack many of our nut trees is known as the Nut Curculios. They 

 are closely related to the apple and the plum curculios, which are 

 among the worst insect enemies of apple, peach, plum, and' some of 

 our otlier fruits. The curculios somewhat resem'ble the weevils in ap- 

 pearance, but have a shorter snout, and differ in the time of their 

 apjjearance and their manner of attack on the nuts. The adult cur- 

 culios are rather robust beetles, of a dark brown to blackish appear- 

 ance with light markings on the back of the wing covers. The Butter- 

 nut Curculio, Black Walnut Curculio, and Hickory Curculio, are three 

 of the most common species. On the butternut and black walnut, the 

 eggs are deposited in small slits eaten in the husk of the nut and are 

 laid during the first part of July up to the middle of August. The 

 white, footless, fat-'bodied grubs, hatching from these eggs, burrow in 

 the husk of t! e nut, causing the infested nuts to drop. The insects 

 complete their growth within the nut, burrow into the ground, and 

 transform to beetles during the late summer. A very similar species 

 nttacks the hickory and pecan. 



Control Measures 



Destroying the newly dropped nuts by i)icking up and burning is 



