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about nine years, and in Maryland for at least twelve years. Dr. 
James Fletcher, Dominion entomologist of Canada, states that he 
has occasional references to this insect every year. 
The greatest amount of loss by the strawberry weevil was reported 
in 1892, when a shortage of two-thirds of the crops of portions of Mary- 
land and Virginia was incurred, a considerable proportion of which 
was without doubt referable to this insect. In 1896 half of the straw- 
berry crop of Maryland, according to Mr. W. G. Johnson’s estimate, 
was destroyed. 
NATURAL HISTORY AND HABITS. 
At, or a few days before, the time of the first blooming of the earliest 
staminate varieties of strawberry this weevil emerges from its winter 
quarters and flies to the nearest 
strawberry beds. This period be- 
gins in the latitude of the Dis- 
trict of Columbia as early some 
seasons as the middle of April, 
but farther north the insect does 
not appear until May. The bee- 
tles evidently continue to issue 
from their places of hibernation 
for at least a month more, though 
their principal damage is done 
during the first two or three 
weeks. After feeding and making 
provision for the continuance of 
their species the beetles die and 
are replaced by a new_ brood, 
which hibernates in its turn. 
Injury, as already stated, is Fia. 8.—Anthonomus signatus : a, b, strawberry 
5 , 9 spray showing work in bud and stem—natural 
due to the work of the female in - size; ¢, outline of egg; d, larva; e¢, head of 
the course of oviposition. Select- !iva,muen enlarged: /, pupa g. open, bud. 
ing an unopened, nearly matured snout of beetle on petals (author's illustra- 
bud she perforates with her beak | a 
the corolla or outer husk and turning about deposits in the hole thus 
formed a single egg (shown in outline, greatly enlarged, at fig. 3, c). 
She then crawls to the pedicel or flower-stem just below the bud and 
with the microscopic but scissor-like mandibles at the extremity of her 
beak deliberately punctures or cuts it in such manner that the portion 
containing the bud hangs by a mere shred of the epidermis and soon 
afterward falls to the ground. 
The object attained by the parent insect in puncturing the stem is 
two-fold: (1) The development of the bud is arrested, its outer envel- 
opes of sepals and petals remain folded, thus retaining the egg or 
crowing larva of the insect and the pollen on which the latter feeds ; 
(2) the bud falling to the ground is kept moist, whereas if permitted 
to remain upon the stem it would eventually have become so dry as 
to prevent the development of the insect within. Ordinarily a single 
larva inhabits a bud, but in exceptional cases two individuals may 
develop in one bud. 
In from four to six or seven days after the eggs are deposited the 
minute whitish or yellowish larve are hatched and these begin to 
feed upon the pollen within the buds; and when this is devoured 

