THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 12? 



small and inconspicuous, being of a black color with a 

 grayish tint. It is represented enlarged at Figure 71, the 

 hair line underneath showing the natural size. It is dis- 

 tinguished from all other curculios that are known to at- 

 tack our fruits by having a rectangular thorn or tooth on 

 the upper and outer edge of the four front shanks (tibiae) as 

 shown at Figure 72; this character being peculiar to the 

 genus (Ccdiodcs) to which it belongs. 

 ^\ Strange as it may seem, in 1868 there seems to have been 



4 an almost entire immunity from this Grape curculio, for I have 



^5^ neither met with it in a single instance, nor heard of its oc- 

 currence. No doubt this immunity has been caused principally by 

 parasites, for I failed entirely to breed the perfect Curculio in 1867, 

 on account of some small Ichneumon which killed the larva as soon 

 as the latter had entered the earth, and spun for itself a tough silken 

 cocoon in the place where the Curculio larva, if unmolested, would 

 have undergone its transformations. It is thus that Nature works ; 

 " eat and be eaten, kill and be killed," is one of her universal laws, 

 and we can never say with surety that because a particular insect is 

 numerous one year, therefore it will be so the next ! 



THE GRAPE-SEED CURCULIO. 



(Coleoptera, CurculionidtE.) 



A minute maggot was discovered last August infesting the seeds 

 of the Grape in certain parts of Canada, by Mr. Wm. Saunders, of 

 London. It causes the berries to shrivel up and utterly ruins them. 

 Specimens which had been received from Canada, were sent to me by 

 my friend A. S. Fuller, of New Jersey, and the annexed Figure 73 

 [Fig. 73.] shows a highly magnified view of the maggot, its 



natural size being represented underneath. The 

 head is of the same translucent, milk-white color 

 the body, but the jaws, which are finely pointed, 

 are light brown, and there is a patch of brown at 

 their base. It has exactly thirteen segments exclusive of the head, 

 and every segment has a few white, fleshy hairs, these hairs being 

 thickest near the head and longest on the under part of the first three 

 segments, thus imitating feet, as is often the case with footless larvae 

 of this character. 



It is evidently the larva of some curculio, and though it is not 

 yet known to occur in the States, I append the following account of 

 it from Mr. Saunders himself, for the benefit of our Grape-growers:* 



* This account is taken from a pappr published by Mr. Saunders in the " Report of the Commis- 

 sioner of Agriculture and Arts of the Province of Ontario," for 1868— pp. 203-5. 



9 R S B 



