INSECTS INJURIOUS TO THE GARDENER 

 AND THE FRUIT-GROWER. 



INSECTS INFESTING THE GRAPE. — On the Fruit. 



CHAPTER I. — The Geape Curculio. (Cteliodes ino'qunlis, Say.) See 



plate, fig. 1. 



This species of snout beetle was described in the perfect beetle 

 state 36 years ago by the great American entomologist, Thomas Say; 

 but up to this date it has never been recognized scientifically in the 

 larva state, and consequently its habits in that state have remained a 

 sealed book to the great world of science. Yet the destructive opera- 

 tions of the larva upon the cultivated grape have been known to vine- 

 yardists for several years back, and the insect appears to be very gen- 

 erally distributed through the valley of the Mississippi; as may be 

 seen at once from the following statements : — 



So long ago as 1853, Dr. Warder, the distinguished pomologist, 

 said that "at Cincinnati they have insects that work on the grape — 

 a species of Curculio." {Transactions Illinois State Agricultural So- 

 ciety^ I. p. 340.) Mr. Spaulding, of Cobden, South Illinois, tells me 

 that he has noticed it on his grapes for four years ; and that one par- 

 ticular vine has been nearly ruined by it for three consecutive years. 

 Mr. T. J. Prickett, of the same neighborhood, &a.js that it has infested 

 his grapes for the last three years. One of these years it took, as he in- 

 forms me, three-fifths of the fruit upon one Isabella and one Concord 

 vine, so as to render the crop almost entirely worthless. Col. H. C. 

 Forbes, of Cobden, finds the Grape Curculio worse than the rot upon 

 his grapes. Mr. S. W. Beckwitli, who resides not far from Cobden, 

 discovered five or six individuals of the perfect beetle, which he iden- 

 tified from specimens, shown to him by me, upon his grapes, in the 

 forepart of August, 1867. Professor Turner, of Jacksonville, Central 

 Illinois, and Mr. McPike of Alton, South Illinois, both of them told 

 me that their grapes were badly stung in 1867 by what, from their 

 description, must be the same insect. Mr. J. E. Switzer, of Carroll 

 Co. and Mr. W. Olds, of Whiteside Co., both in North Illinois, inform 

 me that they have each of them noticed in their grapes, though only 

 in small numbers, borings which in all probability are nothing else 



