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The members of the family Curculionids are very easily recognized by 
the manner in which the head is elongated ; many species having it prolonged 
into a very slender proboscis or beak, whence they have received the distinctive 
name of “snout beetles.”” They-are all vegetable feeders and the larvee invariably 
live concealed within the substances upon which they feed. Several species do 
considerable harm to pines, of which the commonest here is Hylobius pales, the 
dark weevil dotted with scanty grey heirs,so abundant about our lumber yards 
and streets during the greater part of the summer. Its length is about three- 
eighths of an inch. In May and June the beetle may be observed perforating 
the bark with its long snout, the end of which bears minute but strong jaws, and 
depositing its eggs in the holes thus made. The larve when hatched burrow 
between the wood and the bark, loosening the latter and inducing decay in the 
tree. H. Stupidus is a larger beetle, distinguished by having the scutel and the 
scanty hair clothing the body yellow. Its habits are the same as those of the 
preceding species but it is far less abundant. 
Pisscdes strobi, the “ white pine weevil ” is slightly smaller than the foregoing 
species but attacks the young trees in a more vital part, and often effects serious 
damages upon rising forests. It is a chestnut, or reddish-brown beetle, having 
two little dots on the thorax, the scutel and an interrupted band across the 
back white, and patches of yellow hair upon the elytra. The leading or topmost 
shoot of thrifty young pines is the object of its attack, and often in a grove of 
young trees every one will have the top shoot destroyed. The female bores 
holesin the bark, in which it places eggs, at irregular intervals the whole 
length of the shoot, and as soon as the larvee are hatched they eat downward 
towards the centre of the twig and burrow in the pith. In the cells thus 
formed they undergo the necessary changes and emerge the fellowing spring in 
the perfect state. For a month or two after the eggs are laid the growth of the 
twig is unaffected, but as the larvee increase in size it begins to wither and dies 
very shortly. One of the lateral or side shoots curves upward to take place of the 
one destroyed, but a crook is thus caused which lessens in a great degree the value 
of the tree and renders it totally unfit for a spar or mast, which is one of the most 
important and noble uses to which a pine tree can be devoted. Thus was prob- 
ably caused the fork in the famous old pine on Bank Street near Patterson’s Creek. 
When the weevils are numerous thev also attack and destroy the lateral or side 
shoots. The only way to prevent their ravages is but cutting off all the dead 
shoots, in autumn, while the larvee are in them, and burning them. 
The Scolytide are closely related to the snout beetles and are often called 
bark weevils although they have not the elongated heads of the true weevils. They 
are small beetles, our largest species but little exceeding one-quarter of an inch 
in length. Their cylindrical shape, abruptly truncated at each end, has led to the 
remark that they appear as if they had been made by the inch anc then cut into 
small pieces. By perforating the bark and loosening it they injure and destroy 
many of our forest-trees, their immense numbers counterbalancing their minute- 
ness. 
A number of years ago, a train of passenger cars crashed through a high 
bridge, built of timber and comparatively new, and many lives were lost. The 
accident was caused by the rapid decay of the timbers and a celebrated entomologist 
on examining them found that the exterior had been bored by niyriads of these 
little beetles, and water filtering into their tunnels had rotted the wood. 
Pityophthorus sparsus is the first on the list, as well as the smallest of those 
I have found, and it isalso very abundant. It is barely one-sixteenth of an inch 
long ; the thorax being dark and the wing covers yellowish. About the middle 
of May pine saplings may often be seen with drops of balsam oozing out of the 
