372 FRUIT INSECTS 



Treatment. 



It is probable that the beetles could be either killed or driven 

 away from strawberry plants by a thorough application of 

 arsenate of lead, 5 to 8 pounds in 100 gallons of water. Of 

 course, it would not be safe to use this poison after the fruit had 

 attained much size. 



Reference 



Chittenden, U. S. Bur. Ent. Bull. 19, pp. 62-67. 1899. 



The Strawberry Weevil 



Anthonomus signatus Say 



The size of the strawberry crop in the country east of the 

 Rocky Mountains is often greatly lessened by the attacks of 

 a small reddish-brown to black weevil which after laying an 

 egg in the flower bud causes it to fall by cutting the pedicel. 

 In badly infested locahties losses of 50 to 60 per cent of the crop 

 are not uncommon. Fortunately its attacks are of an inter- 

 mittent nature ; after two or three years of abundance in a 

 locahty the weevil usually disappears and does not again attract 

 attention for a much longer period. 



The insect hibernates in the beetle stage, under rubbish, 

 particularly in wood lots or hedge rows adjoining strawberry 

 fields. The beetles (Fig. 327) are only about yV inch in length 

 and vary from almost black to reddish brown, with the head 

 and thorax more or less black and with a large black spot on 

 each wing-cover. 



The adults forsake their winter quarters in the spring and 

 appear in the strawberry fields as soon as the blossom buds put 

 forth. After feeding to a shght extent on immature pollen pro- 

 cured by puncturing the blossom buds the female deposits her 

 eggs singly in the interior of the nearly mature but unopened 

 buds of the staminate varieties. She first punctures the floral 

 envelope of the bud with her snout and then turning around 



