REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGIST AND BOTANIST ‘175 
SESSIONAL PAPER No. 16 
THE PEA WEEVIL OR ‘PEA BUG’ 
(Bruchus pisorum, Linn.). 
Attack.—A small, brownish-gray, very active beetle, one-fifth of an inch long, with 
uwo conspicuous black spots on the end of the body, which emerges from seed peas in 
autumn or in spring, leaving a small round 
hole. The insect is generally spoken of 
under the incorrect name of ‘ Pea Bug,’ 
and infested peas, as ‘buggy’ peas. 
The egg is laid on the outside of the 
young pod, and the grub on hatching eats 
its way in and penetrates the nearest pea. 
Here it remains until full grown, consum- 
ing the interior of the pea and passing 
through all its stages, from a white fleshy 
grub to the pupa, and then to the perfect 
beetle. Some of the beetles, the percent- 
age varying with the season, escape from 
the peas, occasionally as early as harvest 
time, or during the autumn, and pass the winter hidden away under rubbish or about 
barns and other buildings. As a rule, however, the larger proportion do not under 
ordinary circumstances leave the peas until the time when peas are sown the following 
spring, and consequently may be carried into new districts previously uninfested. It 
may be added to this that the perfect insects fly easily and for long distances, and that 
they are attracted by instinct to growing fields of peas, where they feed upon the foliage 
and flowers of the plants until the young pods are formed. The beetles which leave the 
peas in autumn and those which remain in the seeds till the following spring, all become 
fully developed at the same time, which is about the middle cf August, and-all, whether 
they winter outside the peas or inside the grain, die about the same time the following 
season, viz., during the month of June. 
The life history and habits of the Pea Weevil are so well known, and have been so 
frequently explained to farmers and other pea growers that it may seem superfluous to 
some for me again to draw attention to this matter, However, the loss at the present 
time is so great and is increasing so rapidly year by year that it is, I believe, the most 
important subject in connection with my official work, which I have to-day to bring 
before Canadian farmers ; and, as I fully believe that an enormous improvement can be 
made without difficulty in the existing deplorable condition of affairs, simply by 
practising more universally methods which are well known to be effective and which 
are to some extent used, the Hon. Minister of Agriculture has instructed me to do 
everything in my power to urge everyone connected with the growing, handling and 
marketing of peas, to unite in one great effort to reduce the serious loss which is taking 
place every year. If this can be done, I see no reason to doubt that even total extermi- 
nation of this serious pest might be arrived at in a comparatively short time. There is 
nothing new in the way of remedies, nor, indeed, are any better remedies than have been 
known for many years, necessary. Since 1888 attention has been constantly drawn in 
my reports to the remedies which have been found effective, but apparently little has 
been done, and the insect has now increased so much in all the counties of the province 
of Ontario, where formerly peas of the very finest quality were produced, and which lie 
to the south of a line drawn from Kincardine on Lake Huron, through Lake Simcoe and 
Peterborough county about Fenelon Falls to Brockville, that pea growing is no longer 
a paying industry. Moreover, from the efforts made by seedsmen to obtain peas unin- 
jured by the weevil, by having them grown in uninfested districts, the range of infesta- 
tion has been widely spread in counties lying to the north of this line, because seed peas 
have been sent out for propagation for this purpose which had not been properly treated 
before sowing so as to destroy the contained weevils. 
Vig. 2.—The Pea Weevil: all stages—shown of the 
natural size and enlarged. 
