46 APPLE. 



Pear buds. The first appearance of the beetles is recorded as 

 being in March when the flower buds are swelling, and on 

 sunny mornings the beetles may be seen in numbers about 

 the trees. In some of our earlier observations, both British 

 and Continental, of these weevils, it was considered that 

 though the males fly readily, that the females for the most 

 part did not do so, but as a habit crawled up the stem of the 

 tree, or walked from one bud to another. This point is very 

 important relatively to preventive measures, and during the 

 weevil season of 1890, hearing from one of my Kentish ob- 

 servers (on the 2nd of April) that the Apple weevils were 

 " active and plentiful, and it was useless to dress the stems 

 of the trees, as this insect seems to fly as readily as any 

 other," * I suggested it would be very useful if he would make 

 sure whether specimens which he saw on the wing were 

 females by examining whether they contained eggs ; and later 

 on in the month, on the 25th, Mr. H. C. Staples reported to 

 me: " I have killed several with wings, which I have found 

 to contain little creamy- white eggs." 



Hatching may take place from the beginning to the end of 

 April, and if the weather is warm the eggs hatch in about 

 six or seven days ; and from observations sent me in the 

 same year from various localities on the 2nd, 4th, and 6th of 

 June, the change from maggot to chrysalis state and (on the 

 6th) to the weevil condition, of which samples were enclosed, 

 was then in progress. 



The maggots, which will be found inside the flower buds, 

 on the contents of which they have been feeding, are of the 

 shape figured at p. 45, fleshy, whitish, wrinkled across, some- 

 what curved, with a few hairs, legless, and with a dark horny 

 head. 



Each maggot feeds within its own flower bud, which, there- 

 fore, instead of expanding, turns brown, and dies ; the maggot 

 turns to an ochry or rusty-coloured chrysalis of the shape of 

 the beetle, only with its limbs still folded beneath it (see 

 figure 4, magnified, p. 45) in the injured bud ; and here, 

 under the shelter of the brown unexpanded blossom-leaves 

 the weevils develop from the chrysalids in about a month 

 from the time when the eggs were laid, and disperse them- 

 selves over the tree, where they are said to injure the leafage, 

 but the most important damage is that which they cause to 

 the flower buds. 



These beetles are of the shape figured, p. 45, of a reddish 

 brown colour, with three indistinct stripes of a paler colour 

 on the body behind the head ; the wing-cases have a large 



* See my Fourteenth Annual Eeport on Injurious Insects, p. 12. 



