Report of the State Entomologist 2tJ5 



would appear that the Lima is nearly as liable to attack as other 

 varieties. 



In regard to the amount of injury to the individual bean, Professor 

 Popenoe has written: 



The full-grown larvsc are often literally crowded together in the 

 bean. This crowding often results in the entire destruction of 

 the seed except the outer skin, which remains unbroken, thus often 

 totally misleading the observer who sees no external injury except a 

 very few minute white scattered punctures where the insect first 

 entered the bean [?j. In the Dutch case-knife bean the larvae were 

 abundant, a single seed containing by actual count in one instance, as 

 many as twenty-eight, while in other varieties the actual number was 

 only less because the beans were too small to contain so many, 



A package of the small baking bean (Marrowfat), averaging a half- 

 inch in length, received from Mr. H. H. Morrell, of New London, 

 N. Y., and now in the State collection, the weevils from which emerged 

 in my office on the 11th of January, show burrowing to the extent 

 that nearly the entire interior was destroyed, and leaving within the 

 rind only a packed mass of yellowish fecal matter. Many of them — 

 perhaps most — show from tw^enty to tweuty-tive weevil cells. 



In further illustration of the possible multiplication of the insect 

 when it has been left unmolested, the instance may be cited where, 

 from two quarts of beans which had been hung up for seed, over a 

 teacupful of beetles, as reported, were taken when they were opened 

 for planting in the early part of June. 



Infested Beans Should not be Planted. 

 It is hardly necessary to remark that beans containing the living 

 insects should not be planted, as they would quite as readily give out 

 the beetle as if left above ground; and, moreover, the beetle would thus 

 be given every needed facilit}^ for reaching the plants as soon as they 

 are in readiness for the reception of the eggs. Nor should weevil-eaten 

 beans be used for seed; they can not produce healthful plants. , This 

 fact has been overlooked by a number of writers upon the bean- 

 weevil, who have thought it sufficient to urge that care should be 

 taken that all the beetles have left the seed, or been killed within it 

 before planting. It was for a long time believed that the presence of 

 the pea-weevil in the seed rarely interfered with its germination. 

 Thus Latreille had written of it many years ago : " If the summer 

 has been hot, the beetles are disclosed the following autumn, and the 

 seeds will grow notwithstanding their inhabitants, which spare, owing 

 to a wonderful instinct, the vital germ of the pea." Professor West- 

 wood entertained nearly the same belief, for he also represents the 

 larva as having " the curious instinct to leave the most vital parts of 



