50 THIRD ANNUAL REPORT OP 



tighter vessels. To a certain extent sound peas may be obtained by- 

 planting late, for the period of egg-depositing is limited to about a 

 month. Teas, as Mr. F. A. Nitchy of Jefferson City has demonstrated, 

 may be planted in the central part of the State as late as the first of 

 June, and by the time the plants from such late planted seed begin 

 to bear pods, all the weevils will have died and disappeared. Wher- 

 ever a second crop of peas can be grown the same year, this second 

 crop will be entirely free from weevils, and though there seems to be 

 some difficulty in producing a second crop in our State, on account 

 of mildew, it is often done in higher latitudes. Choice lots of seed, if 

 found to be infested when received from the seedsman, may be thrown 

 into hot water for a minute or two, and the sprouting of the peas will 

 be quickened, and most of the weevils, but not all, be killed. But 

 whatever plan be adopted to obtain sound seed, it should be every 

 man's aim, in duty to himself and to his neighbors, to plant none but 

 bugless peas! 



As natural checks, the Crow Black-bird is said to devour great 

 numbers of the beetles in the spring, and according to Harris the 

 Baltimore Oriole splits open the pods to get at the grubs contained in 

 them. 



THE GRAIN BRUCHUS— BrucJius granarius, Linn. 



''f'Jf.' l8 ^ sj There is a weevil in Europe which is very 



common, attacking peas there as badty as our 

 own Pea-weevil does in this country. It also in- 

 fests beans and several other grains and seeds. 

 It has on several occasions been imported with 

 foreign seeds into this country, but very fortu- 

 nately does not seem so far to have obtained a 

 ^strong foothold. There is nothing to prevent its 

 doing so, however, exceptthe utmost vigilance on the part of those 

 who import seeds, and it may at any time get scattered over the 

 country by the distribution of infested seed from the Department of 

 Agriculture, unless the authorities are ever watchful to prevent such 

 a catastrophe. To enable a ready recognition of this weevil, I present 

 an enlarged portrait of it at Figure 18. As will be noticed by that 

 figure it bears a tolerably close resemblance to our own Pea-weevil, 

 but it may always be distinguished from the latter species b} T the fol- 

 lowing characters as given by Curtis: — 



It is in the first place a smaller insect, averaging but 0.11 inch 

 while pisi averages nearly 0.20 inch. It is rather darker, there are two 

 small white spots on the disk of the thorax, and the tooth at each side 

 of the thorax is indistinct; the suture of the wing-covers forms a 

 brown stripe, and the apical joint of the abdomen which protrudes 



