342 NATURAL HISTORY OF ARTHROPODS. 



makes puiictui'es with her proboscis, — which, as in most weevils, is functionally an 

 ovi])Ositor, — just beneath the skin of the fruit, and deposits an egg in each puncture. 

 When the female has thus oviposited, she makes a crescent-formed cut in the surface 

 of the fruit about the egg, so that the egg itself remains in a sort of flap. The foot- 

 less, fleshy, white larvre, -which hatch from the white eggs in from four to eight days, 

 bore into the fruit, where they eat the fleshy portion just ai'ound the stone. The 

 lar\al state lasts from three to five weeks. The disturbance made by the larva gener- 

 ally causes stone-fruit to fall to the ground; there the larva, as soon as full-grown, 

 deserts the fruit in order to pujiate a few inches beneath the surface of the ground. 

 The full-grown larva is about 0.4 of an inch in length, yellowish-white with a light 

 brown head, and is legless. Pujiation lasts about three weeks, when the beetles 

 emero-e, hibernating later beneath leaves, under bark, and in other secluded nooks. 

 This weevil is said by Dr. C. V. Kiley to attack the fruit of *■' the nectarine, plum, 

 apricot, peach, cherry, apjile, pear, and t(uince, preferring them in the order of their 

 naming." Tlie remedies that thus far seem best in order to lessen the numbers of the 

 jilum-weevil arc to destroy the fruit that has fallen td the ground, and to capture the 

 beetles by jarring the trees. Of course an ajiplication of the lirst remedy will 

 not give any visible result the tirst year, because only larv.T will be destroyed, but 

 the beetles will be less numerous succeeding years, and if all fniit-eulturists would 

 unite in thus destroying these weevil-larv;e in the fruit, their injuries would rapidly 

 decrease. Fallen fruit, containing these and dtlier larvaj, cau be gathered, carted 

 from the orchards, and destroyed ; but often a much more convenient and profitable 

 way is to let hogs into the orchards, where they can eat the fruit promptly as it drops 

 from the trees. The capture of the beetles by jarring them from the trees depends 

 upon the habit which nearly all weevils, in common with many other insects, have of 

 dropping to the ground when suddenly disturbed. Dr. Hull, an Illinois fruit-grower, 

 has contrived an apparatus for capturing the weevils by jarring. This ajiparatus is, 

 essentiallv, a large white umbrella inverted over a wheelbarrow. Into that side of the 

 umbrella which is directly opposite the person pushing the barrow a slot extends 

 nearlv to the niidille, where, upon the front end of the wheelbarrow, a pad is fastened 

 to ]irevenl bruising the trees. The wheelliarrow is jiushed suddenly against the trunk 

 of each tree, the slot admitting the trunk, and allowing the umbrella to pass beneath 

 the tree, and the jar which the tree receives from the jiadded barrow shakes the 

 weevils into the inverted umbrella below. 



Passing now from a species especially noteworthy for the agriculturist, the next 

 species to be considered, C'iomts scrojj/iularicr, attacks plants of little value to man, 

 but is interesting to naturalists on account of its peculiar mode of life. The beetle 

 itself, which is common in Europe, and has liecii taken in America, is nearly globular 

 in form, and about 0.15 of an inch long. Its elytra are dark gray, sjiotted with black 

 and white, its prothorax yellowish-white; beneath, the abdomen is black, the legs and 

 anterior portions gray; on the elytral stiture, a little in front of the middle, is a black 

 spot. The species commonly inhabits Scrophuhiria nodosa, although often feeding 

 on other ])lants. Its larva feeds exjioscd upon the leaves of the plant, and covers 

 itself with a sticky secretion wliich is discharged from a wart u]ion the basis of the 

 twelfth segment, and which enaliles it to adhere lo the leaves. "When ready for pulia- 

 tion, the larva s]iins a parchment-like cocoon with i(s secretion. This cocoon is won- 

 derfully similar to the seed-capsules of tlie Scrophtilaria, and is generally attaclied to 

 pedicels of these seed-pods. This is a most striking case where a cocoon mimics, for 



