264 



THE PEACH. 



perfect state, perfected themselves in the Fall, and in some 

 instances produced a second brood of larvae. Far be it from 

 me to pronounce there is no such thing as rule in nature, and 

 that we cannot, therefore, generalize ; I simply assert that we 

 frequently draw our lines too rigidly, and endeavor to make 

 the facts come within them, instead of loosenina; and allowing 

 them to encompass the facts. It was thus that the joint worm 

 fly was for so long a time suspected to be a parasite instead of 

 a tree culprit, because all the other species in the genus 

 {Eurytoma), to which it was supposed to belong, were known 

 to be the parasite. For those< 

 who are unacquainted with the 

 appearance of the plum curcu- 

 Ho, in its different stages, I 

 have prepared, at figure 18, 

 correct and magnified portraits 

 of the full grown larvce (a) of 

 the pupa (b) into which the 

 larvge is transformed within a 

 little cavity under ground, and 

 of the perfect curculio, (c). 



With this prelude I will now give what I believe to be 

 facts in its natural history, founded on my own observations 

 of the past year, and on the observations of others. I firmly 

 believe : 



1. That plum curculios are a most unmitigated nuisance, 

 and, though most beautiful objects under the microscope, the 

 fruit growers of the United States, if they had their own way 

 about the matter, would wish them swept from off the face of 

 the earth, at the rate even of interfering with the "harmony 

 of nature." 



2. That they are more numerous in timbered regions than 

 on the prairie. 



3. That they can fly and do fly during the heat of the day, 

 and that cotton bandages around the trunk, and all like con- 

 trivances to prevent their ascending the trees, are worse than 

 useless, and a result only of ignorance of their economy. 



4. That by its punctures it causes the dreaded peach-rot 



FIGURE 18. 



