352 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



rough, dark brown or blackish beetle, looking like a dried bud, 

 when it is shaken from the trees, which resemblance is increased 

 by its habit of drawing up its legs and bending its snout close to 

 the lower side of its body, and remaining for a time without mo- 

 tion and seemingly lifeless. In stinging the fruit, before laying 

 its eggs, it uses its short curved snout, which is armed at the tip 

 with a pair of very small nippers ; and by means of this weapon, 

 it makes, in the tender skin of the young plum or apple, a cres- 

 cent-shaped incision, similar to what would be formed by indent- 

 ing the fruit with the finger nail. Very rarely is there more than 

 one incision made in the same fruit ; and in the wound, the weevil 

 lays only a single egg. The insect hatched from this egg is a little 

 whitish grub, destitute of feet, and very much like a maggot in ap- 

 pearance, except that it has a distinct, rounded, light brown head. 

 Through the kind attentions of several gentlemen I have been fur- 

 nished with numerous specimens of these grubs, obtained from the 

 fruit and from the warty tumors of the trees ; and to the liberality 

 of another gentleman am indebted for an opportunity of examining 

 the same with a powerful microscope, presented to me for the 

 purpose. By this means 1 have satisfactorily ascertained that the 

 grubs from the fruit and from the warts were exactly alike, and 

 that both were without feet. It appears, furthermore, that the tu- 

 mors on plum and on cherry trees are infested not only by these 

 insects, but also by another kind of grub, provided with legs, and 

 occasionally by the wood-eating caterpillars of the yEgeria exi- 

 liosa, or peach-tree borer. When the grubs of the plum-weevil 

 are fully grown, they go into the ground, and are there changed to 

 chrysalids of a white color, having the legs and wings free and 

 capable of some motion ; and finally they leave the ground in the 

 form of little beetles, exactly like those which had previously stung 

 the fruit. Further observation seems to be wanting before it can 

 be proved that the cankerous warts on plum and cherry trees arise 

 from the irritating punctures of the plum-weevils and of the other 

 insects that occasionally make these warts their places of abode ; 

 although it must be allowed that the well-known production of 

 galls by insects on oak-trees and on other plants, would lead us 

 to suppose that those of the plum-tree have a similar origin. In 

 addition to the means already recommended for preventing the 



