92 



p. 25.) According to Dr. Fitch, who lives about 110 miles further 

 north than I do — where, consequently, as also in the two cases just 

 quoted, the seasons Avoiild be a little later than with me — most of the 

 Curculios that breed in the plum "leave the fruit and enter the 

 ground in the early part of July, some not leaving for probably two 

 or three weeks afterwards." "They remain," he continues, ''in the 

 ground about three weeks. Hence, it is during the latter part of July 

 that the most of them come out in the perfect state.'' (Ibid., p. 20.) 

 This last writer was evidently not aware, that Curculios may be bred 

 both from Plum and from Black-knot to as late a period as the latter 

 end of Septemljer and hence, belicAing that the species must necessa- 

 rily be double-brooded, he mistook for young Curculio-lan'ae certain 

 minute bodies, that he found in the autumn embedded in a slit 

 in a pear-twig. But these were very probably, 1 think, not Jarvse, at 

 all, but the eggs of some small Ijeaf-hopper {TetUgonia family,) and 

 perhaps those of my Culprit Jjeaf-hopper (Chloroneura malefica, 

 Walsh), which agree precisely with his description, and which I have 

 described as common both on apple-twigs and pear-twigs.* Be this as 

 it may, with no further proof than a general resemblance between the 

 crescent-slit made in plums by the Curculio, and the slit containing 

 minute elongate bodies which he once found in a pear-twig, and with- 

 out any attempt to breed the perfect insect from these mini;te bodies. 

 Dr. Fitch has jumped to the astounding conclusion, that the Curculio 

 passes the winter in the larva state inside the twigs of trees, f 



Making due allowance for the difference of latitude, it is plain 

 that, in the above-quoted three cases, where Curculios were bred by 

 three different individuals, in Xew England, in Canada West, and in 

 New York respectively, all that were bred coincided in the time of 

 their appearance with the first brood that I bred at Rock Island, be- 

 tween the 19th of July and the 4th of August^, 1867. I myself in 

 1865 bred seven Curculios from Black-knot, as I have recorded in the 

 Practical Entomologist (Vol. I. p. 50,) the first of which came out 

 July 22d and the last September 24th ; but unfortunately I have 

 since destroyed the record of the dates at which the remaining fivo 

 made their appearance, with the exception of an entry on my Jour- 

 nal, that the second specimen of the seven came out as late as August 

 31st, and must therefore, as well as the four following specimens, 

 have belonged to the second brood. 



*Sec my Articles Prairie Former, Sept. 6, 1862. and April 4, 1863, p. 212, 

 in which last there is given a figure of an apple-twig containing these egg-slits. 



fSee Address on Curculio, pp. 23 — 4, and \. Y. Rep., II., § 52. 



