56 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



germ of the future sprout untouched. Hence these buggy pease, 

 as they are called by seedsmen and gardeners, will frequently 

 sprout and grow when planted. The grub is changed to a pupa 

 within its hole in the pea in the autumn, and before the spring 

 casts its skin again, becomes a beetle, and gnaws a hole through 

 the thin hull in order to make its escape into the air, which fre- 

 quently does not happen before the pease are planted for an early 

 crop. After the pea-vines have flowered, and while the pods are 

 young and tender, and the pease within them are just beginning to 

 swell, the beetles gather upon them, pierce the pods, and deposit 

 their tiny eggs in the punctures. This is done only during the 

 night, or in cloudy weather. Each egg is always placed opposite 

 to a pea ; the grubs, as soon as they are hatched, penetrate the 

 pod and bury themselves in the pease ; and the holes through 

 which they pass are so fine as hardly to be perceived, and are 

 soon closed. Sometimes every pea in a pod will be found to con- 

 tain a weevil-grub ; and so great has been the injury to the crop in 

 some parts of the country that the inhabitants have been obliged to 

 give up the cultivation of this vegetable.* These insects, as Mr. 

 Deane has observed, diminish the weight of the pease in which 

 they lodge, nearly one half, and their leavings are fit only for the 

 food of swine. This occasions a great loss, where pease are 

 raised for feeding stock or for family use, as they are in many 

 places. Those persons, who eat whole pease in the winter after 

 they are raised, run the risk of eating the weevils also ; but if the 

 pease are kept till they are a year old, the insects will entirely 

 leave them. 



The pea-weevil is supposed to be a native of the United States. 

 It seems to have been first noticed in Pennsylvania, many years 

 ago ; and has gradually spread from thence to New Jersey, New 

 York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. It is yet 

 rare in New Hampshire, and I believe has not appeared in the 

 eastern parts of Maine. It is unknown in the North of Europe, as 

 we learn from the interesting account given of it by Kalm, the 

 Swedish traveller, who tells us of the fear with which he was filled, 

 on finding some of these weevils in a parcel of pease which he had 



See Kalm's Travels. 8vo. Wairington. 1770. Vol. I. p. 173. 



