NOXIOUS INSECTS. 



SNOUT-BEETLES. 



(Coleoptera Curculionida>). 



AN ACCOUNT OF SOME OF THOSE SPECIES WHICH ARE INJURIOUS TO FRUITS 

 AND VEGETABLES. 



In my First Annual Report 1 gave an account of the common 

 Plum Curculio, which was as complete as our knowledge of the insect 

 would then permit. Since the publication of that Report many new 

 and most important facts, relating to this insect, have been brought 

 to light, and I deem it wise in this review of some of our more inju- 

 rious snout-beetles, to lay these facts before the reader. Many of 

 them were embodied in an essay read by myself at the Fifteenth An- 

 nual Meeting of the Illinois State Horticultural Society, recently 

 held at Galesburg, in that State, and therefore, with some impor- 

 tant additions, I reproduce that essay, which embraces the first five 

 insects here treated of. 



Insects, like other animals, derive their nourishment from the 

 vegetable and animal kingdoms; but a glance is sufficient to show 

 that they possess a far greater field of operations than all the other 

 animals combined. Indeed, the food of insects is a theme so large 

 that I might occupy page after page by dwelling upon it alone. The 

 other animals use as food but a very small portion of the inexhausti- 

 ble treasures of the vegetable kingdom, and the remainder is unpala- 

 table or even poisonous to them. Not so with insects, for, from the 

 gigantic Banyan which covers acres with its shade, or the majestic 

 Oak, to the invisible fungus, the vegetable creation is one vast ban- 

 quet, to which they sit down as guests. The larger plant- feeding ani- 

 mals are also generally confined, in their diet, to the leaves, seeds or 

 stalks, being either foliaceous or farinaceous; but insects make every 

 possible part of a plant yield them valuable provender. We have an 

 excellent illustration of this omnipresent character of insects in those 

 species which are well known to attack the common apple tree. 

 Thus, beginning at the root, we find it rendered knotty and unhealthy 

 on the outside by the common Root-louse (Eriosoma pyri, Fitch), 

 while the heart is often entirely destroyed by one or the other of two 



