262 THE PEACH. 



above ground, or in the preparatory state below ground ; the 

 very earliest accounts that we have of the plum curculio, in 

 this country, differing on these points. Thus it was believed 

 by Dr. James Tilton, of Wilmington, Delaware, who wrote 

 at the very beginning of the present century, and by Dr. 

 Joel Burnett, of Southborough, and M. TI. Simpson, of Sax- 

 on ville, Ms., who wrote interesting articles on this subject, 

 about fifty years afterwards ; that it passed the winter in the 

 larvae or grub state under ground, and Harris seems to have 

 held the same opinion. But Dr. E. Sanbom, of Andover, Ms., in 

 some interesting articles published in 1849 and 1850, gave as 

 his conviction that it hybernates in the beetle state above 

 ground. Dr.. Fitch, of New York, came to the conclusion 

 that it is two brooded, the second brood wintering in the larvae 

 state in the twigs of pear trees ; while Dr. Trimble, of New 

 Jersey, who devoted the greater part of a large and expensive 

 work to its consideration, decided that it is single brooded, 

 and that it hibernates in the beetle form above ground. Since 

 the writings of Harris and Fitch, and since the publication of 

 Dr. Trimble's work, there have been other papers published 

 on the subject. The first of these was a tolerably exhaustive 

 article, by Mr. Walsh, which appeared in the Practical En- 

 tomologist^ (Vol. II, No. 7), in which he takes the grounds 

 that the curculio is single brooded ; though subsequently he 

 came to the very different conclusion that it was double brood- 

 ed. (First Annual Report, p. 67.) In the Summer of 1867, 

 I spent between two and three weeks' in Southern Illinois, 

 during the height of the curculio season, and closely watched 

 its manoeuvrings. From the fact that there was a short period 

 about the middle of July, when scarcely any could be caught 

 from the trees, and that after a warm shower they were quite 

 numerous, having evidently just come out of the ground, I 

 concluded it was double brooded, and communicated to the 

 Prairie Farmer of July 27th, 1867, th^ passage to that effect 

 under the signature of "V," which is quoted by Mr. Walsh, 

 (Rep., p. 67,) as corroborative of its two brooded character. 

 Subsequent calculations induced me to change my mind, and 

 I afterwards gave it as my opionion that there was but one 



