CABBAGE AND TURNIP-GALL WEEVIL, 



35 



Cabbage and Turnip Gall Weevil. Centorhynchus snlcicolUs, Gyll. 



1 — 0, Gall with maggots, nat. size and magnified; 6 and 7, Weevil, 

 nat. size and magnitied ; 8, leg of Weevil, magnified. 



The Cabbage and Turnip-gall Weevil does mischief by 

 causing the growth of the smooth knobs, or clusters of knobs, 

 often observable on the bulbs of Turni]ps and Swedes, and 

 also on the underground part of the stem, or even the roots 

 of various kinds of Cabbage. These galls do little harm in 

 themselves, so far as Turnips are concerned, — that is, unless 

 they are very numerous, or cause decay by wet lodging in the 

 hollows in the galls, from which the maggots have escaped. 

 But with Cabbage it is different. Here the gall-growths on 

 the old stocks are not available for food as they are with 

 Turnips ; they carry off the sap in the wrong direction, 

 besides inducing decay. 



The Turnip and Cabbage-gall Weevil is a very small 

 blackish beetle, about the eighth of an inch long, and of the 

 shape figured above (magnified) which shows the long fine 

 proboscis, or snout, with the "elbowed" antennae, or horns, 

 placed on each side ; also the channel along the middle of 

 the thorax, and striao, or furrows, along the wing-cases. The 

 colour is black, with grey or white scales beneath, and some- 

 times a sprinkling of them above. 



The method of attack is for the female either to make 

 little holes with her proboscis, in which to deposit her eggs, 

 — usually one in each hole, — or else simply to lay them on 

 the surface of the Turnip-bulb, or Cabbage-stock or root, as 

 the case may be. The maggots which hatch from these eggs 

 are, as figured, thick and legless, very much wrinkled across, 

 and white or yellowish. The head is furnished with strong 

 chestnut-coloured jaws, darker at the tips, and also armed at 

 the tips with two teeth, and sometimes with a third much 

 smaller tooth on the inner side. 



The gall-maggots are for some time hardly observable 

 within the galls, which their presence has given rise to, but 



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