THK STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 53 



pointed out to "me aheap of threshed beans, on the floor, of the Early- 

 Mohawk variety, which he said had been destroyed by bugs getting 

 into them since they were threshed. (?) A casual inspection showed 

 that they were destroyed sure enough. At least one-half of them 

 were as badly infested as the sample I send you, but as I pointed out 

 to him, the damage which was now an accomplished fact, had been 

 commenced during the growing season, and the "bugs" were now 

 leaving the beans instead of entering them. 



Next season I found a few among my own beans, and they have 

 been on the increase ever since; and this year my Yellow Six Week 

 variety are nearly as bad as my neighbors referred to above. They 

 are nearly as bad this year on a pole variety, the "Dutch Case Knife," 

 as they are on the low growing ones. The small black bush variety, 

 however seems to have escaped them. If some check is not put to 

 their ravages soon, the culture of beans will have to be given up 

 here. 



In a short article on this weevil, published by Mr. S. S. Rathvon, 

 in the American Entomologist, (Vol.11, pages 118-119,) that gentle- 

 man gives the following account of its appearance in his neighbor- 

 hood : 



My specimens evolved in the months of June, July, August and 

 September, from three varieties of the domestic bean (Phaseolus,) 

 commonly called "Cranberry," the "Agricultural," and the "Wrens- 

 egg" beans, obtained from Mrs. P. C. Gibbons, Enterprise, Lancaster 

 county. Pa. * * * * I have not yet heard of this insect 

 being found in any other locality in Lancaster county than the one 

 above named. The tenant from whom Mrs. Gibbons received these 

 infested beans has been engaged in the bean culture for tw r enty-five 

 years on the same farm, and never noticed these weevils until within 

 the last two or three years, and only last year did their destructive 

 character become conspicuously apparent; for out of a small sack of 

 seed-beans hung away, containing less than two quarts, she gathered 

 nearly a teacup-full of the weevils at planting time, in the early part 

 of June, and had all been infested as those were which she brought to 

 me, she could have easily doubled the quantity. About five years 

 ago Mrs. Gibbons received some seed-beans of the "Cranberry" va- 

 riety, from Nantucket, Mass , and prior to that, she also received some 

 from the Agricultural Department of the Patent Office, and with the 

 one or the other of these, the impression is that the weevils must 

 have been received. 



If, as I have supposed (and by perusing what is printed below in 

 small type, the reader will see that no other conclusion can be drawn), 

 this weevil is indigenous ; it may possibly occur over large tracts of 

 our country, though the fact that, till a few years ago, it had never 

 been collected by any American entomologist, would strongly inti- 

 mate that, in what may be termed its wild state, it was quite rare and 

 had a limited range. But even if it should occur in this wild state more 

 generally through the country than the facts would lead us to believe, 

 there is nevertheless more danger of its being introduced into a bean 

 field hitherto exempt by the planting of infested cultivated beans, 

 than by its spreading from the wild food. And if once a few buggy 

 beans are planted, they will in a few years contaminate the other 

 beans cultivated in the neighborhood, so that the man who year after 



