22 The Bulletin. 



The adult parent weevil is less than % inch long, chestnut-brown in 

 color, and has on each side of the body a black spot which is surrounded 

 by a gray border. From the head there projects a snout a little more 

 than half as long as the body. 



Weevils begin to appear in the fields about the last of March or first 

 of April, showing up first along edges of woods, next to ditch banks, 

 fence rows, briar patches, etc. There is no evidence that they are 

 brought in with the pine straw. Within a week they become abundant, 

 and may be found mating. The injury consists in cutting off the stem 

 of the buds after laying the eggs in the bud itself. The larvae (grub) 

 which hatches from the egg feeds on the pollen in the cut and wilted 

 bud. It reaches full growth in the same individual bud in which it is 

 hatched, changes to a pupa, and emerges from the bud as a mature 

 weevil about June 1st to 10th. Meanwhile the bud may still be attached 

 to the plant, but is more likely to have fallen to the ground. After 

 emerging as adults (June 1st to 10th) the adult weevils do not seem to 

 mate, but begin to migrate to woods, hedges, ditch banks, etc., where 

 they may be found on many kinds of flowers, including swamp mag- 

 nolia, gallberry, blackberry, rose, etc. When laying eggs (April 5th to 

 May 5th) they may be found feeding upon and even cutting the buds 

 of rose, apple, blackberry, etc. There is evidence of only one gener- 

 ation each year, for the weevils emerging early in June were not found 

 mating, but were evidently migrating from the strawberries to the 

 woods, waste places, etc. Hence we believe that the same individual 

 weevils which emerge in June are the ones which invade the fields the 

 following spring and cut the berry buds. 



The remedies to be applied are based on the points already brought 

 out in the foregoing discussion, and the severity of damage must de- 

 termine whether it is worth while to apply them. 



As the larvae (grub) in the bud feeds on pollen, the weevil is largely 

 dependent on pollen-hearing varieties, and varieties which hear no {or 

 little) pollen are not so much hurt by weevil. They will cut the buds 

 of these to some extent, but not nearly so much as the pollen-bearing 

 ones. We are aware that the favorite varieties among our commercial 

 growers at the present are ones which bear pollen, and we are also 

 aware that the pollen bearers are apt to be earlier and to fruit more 

 profusely ; but these facts must not blind the growers to the further im- 

 portant fact, that they are most subject to weevil. Hence the grower 

 always has the final chance to escape much weevil injury by using im- 

 perfect-blooming varieties, and this is a sort of natural exemption which 

 he can obtain in no other way. Whether the benefit will be great enough 

 to amend for the lighter bearing is always a point on which some chance 

 must be taken, and must be decided by the grower in the light of his 

 experience with the weevil, and with the imperfect-blooming berries. 



The second great point in control is this : Our observations showed 

 that the cut and fallen buds gave forth weevils from about June 1st to 



