CUECULIONID^. 



489 



dried bud when shaken from the trees; When the fruit is set, 

 the beetles sting the plums, and sometimes apples and peaches, 

 with their snouts, making a curved incision, in which a single 

 egg is deposited. Mr. F. C. Hill shows that the curculio 

 makes the crescent-shaped cut after the egg is pushed in "so 

 as to undermine the egg, and leave it in a kind of flap formed 

 by the little piece of the flesh of the fruit which she has under- 

 mined. Can her object be to wilt the piece around the egg 

 and prevent the growing fruit from crushing it?" (Practical 

 Entomologist, ii, p. 115.) The grub hatched therefrom is a 

 little footless, flesh}^ white grub, with a distinct round light 

 brown head. The irritation set up by these larvjie causes 

 the fruit to drop l)eforc it is of full size, with the larva still 

 within. Now full-fed, it 

 burrows directly into the 

 gi'ound and there trans- 

 forms during the last of 

 the summer. In three 

 weeks it becomes a beetle 

 It also attacks many other 

 garden fruits, such as the 

 cheny, peach and quince. 

 Drs. Harris, Burnett and 

 others, think the larva is 

 but a temporary occupant 

 of the wart on plumb and cherry trees, and not a cause of 

 the disease. The best remedy is jarring the trees, and catch- 

 ing the larva in sheets and bm-ning them. Dr. Hull's "cur- 

 culio catcher" is an excellent invention for destroying these 

 insects ; it consists of a large inverted white umbrella, fixed 

 upon a large wheelbarrow split in front to receive the trunk , 

 of the tree, against which it is driven with force suflicient 

 to jar the curculios from the tree into the umbrella. 



The genus Ceutorhyndms is a small, short, thick curculio, 

 which attacks the seeds of the radish and allied plants. We 

 have noticed a pale gray species on the radish, which probably 

 inhabits the seeds. 



The genus Calandra has a slender snout slightly beut down- 

 wards, a coarsely punctured thorax nearly half as long as the 



Fig. 4G7. 



