EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS. 



341 



with a padded maul having a handle six to eight feet long. A long handled maul 

 makes it possible to reach up into the tree. The beetles will fall to the sheet or 

 frame and can be gathered up and dropped into kerosene. This should be done 

 about the period of blossoming to obtain the best results. 



Spray with paris-green, using one pound of poison, and one pound of lime, 

 to 175 gallons of water (see chapter on insecticides). Do this just as the buds 

 swell and repeat immediately after the blossoms have fallen. If the beetles 

 remain plentiful, spray once more after about two weeks. 



The Plum Gouger. {Coccotorus pninicida.) 



The gouger is a small snout-beetle, about a quarter of an inch long. Its method 

 of work is much like that of the curculio. It is mottled brown in color, with 

 short whiteish hairs that give it a pruinose appearance. It can be easily dis- 

 tinguished from the curculio by its size and by the absence of humps on the 

 wing-covers. It confines its work for the most part to the Mississippi valley and 

 the West. 



Fig. 65. 



Figs. 65 and 66. — Plum gouger showing beetles, enlarged, and pits from whicli gougers have 



emerged. Author's illustration. 



The adult beetle hibernates in the winter, and in the spring attacks the flowers 

 of the plum in a manner at once peculiar and ingenious. The part eaten is the 

 ovule or the part which would, if uninjured, in time become a fruit. The gouger 

 €ats a hole in the side of the calyx, the green cup at the base of the flower, and 

 reaching in with its long beak eats the coveted part. Later the gouger eats holes 

 in the young fruit, sometimes laying eggs therein. The egg is laid in a hole in 

 the fruit with no crescentric flap as in the case of the curculio. The young grub 

 works directly into the soft pit, and lives there, leaving no indication of its 

 presence, except perhaps a scar on the outside of the fruit and the gum which 

 exudes from it. Sometimes, however, a malformation of the fruit results. Here 

 in the pit, the pupal stage is passed, and during the latter part of August, the 

 adult beetle emerges. The fruit usually does not fall until just previous to the 

 exit of the inhabitant. 



REMEDIES. 



During the period of bloom and just before and after this period, the beetles 

 may be obtained by jarring, just as is done for the curculio. Jarring should 



