63 
removed and fresh soil put in its place. There are several instances on record of 
rose-growers having given up the cultivation of this queen of all flowers, on 
account of the attacks of this insect ; but this is not necessary, if they will learn 
something of its life-history and apply remedies accordingly. Prof. Riley has 
worked out the life-history and finds that the eggs are laid in flattened batches of 
from 10 to 60, the individual eggs being smooth yellow and ovoid and about one 
millimetre in length. They are laid by the female at the base of the plant just 
above the ground, and are generally pushed between the loose bark and the stem, 
or are laid between the earth and the main stem, just at the surface of the ground. 
They are so firmly glued together and to the place where they are deposited that 
they can only be detached with difficulty. After about a month the eggs hatch 
and the active little larvee at once burrow down into the ground and begin their 
work of destruction. When full grown they turn to pupa, Fig. 27, from which 
the mature beetles emerge in about three weeks. The perfect 
beetle, Fig. 28, is a brown weevil, a little more than } of an inch in 
length, with a short thick snout and long slender antenne or feelers, 
bent abruptly in the middle. The wing-cases are indistinctly striate, 
and bear rows of large punctures and minute hairs. A whitish Fig. 27. 
stripe runs along the sides of the thorax and half way down the sides where 
it terminates as an oblique white dash, reaching to the middle of each wing-case. 
Prof. Riley says: “The parent beetles, like most other snout beetles, live for a 
considerable time, as I have kept them in confinement for 
nearly three months. They are nocturnal in habit, beg quite 
active and feeding only after dusk. They shun the light during 
day-time and hide under the leaves or cling tightly to the 
Fig. 28. branches or in some fork near the base of the plant, always in 
such position as not easily to be observed. They drop to the ground when 
disturbed, draw up their legs and ‘play possum, remaining motionless for some 
time and looking very much like a small lump of dry earth, the colour adding 
greatly to the resemblance. This habit of simulating death upon disturbance is 
common to many other insects of this family. They feed upon the leaves, but do 
more injury by severing them than by the amount of foliage consumed.”, 
“The beetle seems to be purely American, and the genus Aramigus was in fact 
erected for it and another species (A. tesselatus), of about the same size, but of a 
silvery white colour, with faint green hue, which I have found in Kansas upon 
the well-known ‘resin weed.’ The beetle belongs to the same family, and is 
pretty closely allied to a well-known European beetle, Otiorhynchus sulcatus, 
Fab., which is larger and darker in colour, and is also very injurious to green- 
house plants, as well as to some grown out of doors. This species also occurs in 
this country.” The last-named beetle has been taken by Mr. Harrington at 
Sydney, Cape Breton, but has never yet been reported as an injurious insect in 
Canada. 
Remedies.—Probably the most satisfactory remedies for this pest are those 
which are directed towards the destruction of the mature beetles. As stated 
above these are very retentive of life. They can, however, certainly be con- 
quered by constant watchfulness and by keeping the plants in the house where 
they occur frequently sprayed all the time the perfect beetles occur with weak 
arsenical mixtures. Paris green of the strength of 1 Ib. to 300 gallons of water 
is strong enough to destroy the beetles and will not injure the plants if kept well 
mixed all the time it is being used. Mr. Alderman Scrim, of Ottawa, an exten- 
sive grower of roses and other plants for winter cut-flowers was very successful 
in trapping the beetles by means of the small bamboo canes commonly used by 
florists for supporting potted plants in greenhouses. These were cut so that there 
