144 Annals Entomological Society of America  [Vol. XIV, 
growth seem to be a very attractive food. A hole is drilled 
near the base of the thorn and the beetle will spend hours with 
the beak inserted in the hole clear up to the eyes, prying and 
straining to enlarge the cavity within the thorn. The round 
hole at the base of a thorn does not heal during the season’s 
growth and the presence of-such holes will indicate at any time 
of the year the presence of the blossom weevils. The beetles also 
attack the fruit and make several round holes in a single fruit 
before seeking another. The holes become brown almost 
immediately. I have never found the beetles eating leaves or 
tender twigs, but they sometimes feed on the succulent globular 
leaf galls of cecidomyiid larva. They will puncture and feed 
on young apples in the cages when fresh haws are not to be had, 
but I have found none feeding on apples in the field. 
After feeding for a week or ten days the beetles may be 
found in copulation on the branches, and a week or so later, as 
warm July weather comes, they disappear from the trees. 
Those kept in breeding cages remained hidden in fallen curled 
leaves and hollow twigs on the ground all summer and winter 
without feeding until the next spring. A search for their 
hiding places in the field revealed a score of the beetles enclosed 
in curled dried leaves on the ground beneath their bost trees. 
The life cycle may be summarized as fcllows: The immature 
stages (egg, larva and pupa) are completed within the closed 
blossom in from 27 to 35 days and the remainder of the year 
is passed in the adult stage. The adults feed on thorns and 
fruit for two or three weeks after emerging from the blossoms, 
then remain quiescent among fallen leaves on the ground until 
the next spring, when they feed for about a month on the 
buds before ovipositing. Soon after oviposition the beetles 
die. In New York the eggs are laid about mid-May and the 
beetles emerge from the blossoms in June. Pierce says the 
beetles emerge in late March and early in April in [ouisiana. 
The time of their development in different latitudes is dependent 
on the opening of the hawthorn blossoms in those latitudes. 
A number of natural enemies of the blossom weevil have been 
observed. Various birds and especially sparrows pick open the 
brown blossoms to eat the larve and pupe.: Pierce found them 
to be parasitized by Catolaccus huntert and Sigalphus sp. 
(U.S. Bur. Ent. Bull. 100, p. 77). The writer has bred another 
chalcid, Habrocytus piercer Cwfd. from the larva of the weevil, 
the adult parasites emerging June 16th and 17th. 
