PLUM INSECTS 245 



under leaves or other trash. Stone walls or hedges and adjoin- 

 ing wood lots furnish ideal hibernating quarters, as is shown 

 by the greater injury to that part of orchards lying nearest 

 to such retreats. In the spring about the time the buds open 

 the beetles desert their winter quarters and appear on the trees. 

 They are small, rough snout-beetles, about J inch in length, 

 mottled with black, gray and brownish, and there is a black 

 shining hump on the middle of each wing cover (Fig. 219). 

 The sharp-biting 

 jaws are located 

 at the tip of the 

 snout, which hangs 

 down something 

 like the trunk of 

 an elephant. The 

 beetles attack the 

 fruit as soon as it 

 is set. Two kinds 

 of punctures are 

 made : those for 

 feeding only and 

 those for the recep- 

 tion of the egg. In 



feeding the beetle Fig. 221. — Plum curculio egg-crescents in young 



cuts a small, round ^ ""^^" 



opening through the skin and then eats out a cavity in the pulp 

 about I inch in depth, or as deep as it can reach with the tip 

 of the snout. In egg-laying the female first makes a cut through 

 the skin of the fruit and runs her snout obliquely into the flesh 

 just under the skin and gouges out a cavity large enough to 

 receive her egg. Then turning around, a minute, white egg is 

 dropped into the hole, and reversing her position she pushes 

 it into the cavity with her snout. Just in front of the hole she 

 now cuts a crescent-shaped slit which she extends obliquely 



