1910 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 69 



Life History. The adult curculio beetles winter over in rubbish on the 

 ground, under bark and elseM^iere^ and emerge from their hiding places about the 

 time the plums and apples are in blossom. The eggs are deposited within punctures 

 partiall}' surrounded by a crescent-shaped slit in the newly-formed apples and 

 plums. The eggs hatch in less than a week and the larva? proceed to make 

 channels in the fruit. Infested fruit soon falls, and in about three weeks the 

 mature larvae emerge and enter the ground. There they pupate, and in about four 

 weeks emerge as beetles. These soon fly to the fruit and continue feeding upon it, 

 until the fruit is picked from the trees, marking it with the characteristic cylin- 

 drical punctures. As winter - advances they hide themselves under rubbish and 

 bark to hibernate until spring. 



The adults that emerge in summer deposit no eggs, all the eggs being laid by 

 the over-wintering beetles. The injury to apples is done mostly by the beetles 

 that mature in summer, as they make deep punctures when they feed upon the 

 fruit. 



It is rather a strange thing that curculio larva? develop only in small apples, 

 and will not reach their development unless the apple has fallen. 



A single mother curculio may deposit between 200 and 300 eggs, extending 

 over a period of three months, hence is capable of doing a great deal of injury. 

 This great egg-laying and puncturing power of the beetles explain the greatly dis- 

 torted condition of many of the apples observed this year at Brome, Abbotsford, 

 and elsewhere. In the great majority of apples examined there were as many 

 feeding-punctures as egg-punctures. Not in every case did the eggs develop when 

 deposited within the crescent-shaped mark, for we found many apples that showed 

 the crescent slit but had no trace of larvae. 



Treatment. Observations made in Illinois and elsewhere show that unculti- 

 vated orchards suffer most from curculios, and our Quebec orchard conditions 

 would favor drawing the same conclusion. And such is what we might naturally 

 expect, for the conditions of the uncultivated orchard, with the excessive amount 

 of grass and weeds and rubbish, and the absence of pruning, furnish ideal con- 

 ditions for the development of the curculio. Besides, the proximity of neglected 

 orchards is a menace to clean orchards. 



There are four ways of treating the curculio : 



1. The destruction of fallen fruit, so as to kill the larvae before they make 

 their escape into the gTOund. The early small apples should be specially looked 

 after in June and July, for these contain a large percentage of the larvae. The 

 later and larger fallen fruit do not, as a rule, contain many larvae. 



The presence of hogs in an orchard is strongly recommended, if no other 

 means can be found to clean up and destroy the fallen fruit. 



2. Suitable cultivation, so as to destroy many of the larvae and pupae in the 

 soil. It has been found that the larvae and pupae are extremely sensitive to physical 

 disturbances of any kind, as well as to light and air. Cultivation permits their 

 exposure, for a short time at least, to sunlight and to the attacks of their enemies, 

 birds, ants, and predaceous insects. As a rule, orchardists prefer to cultivate up 

 to the middle of July, but where curculios are doing much harm this cultivation 

 should be continued for a month longer, in order to do effective work to the 

 larv^ and pupte in the soil. 



3. Spraying with Paris Green or Arsenate of Lead, to destroy the adult beetles. 

 This treatment has not given good results, and it is doubtful if the practice war- 

 rants the trouble and expense. 



