95 



that he once found in the craw of one of them the head of some kind 

 or other of Snout-beetle, the eye of which contained exactly 147 facets. 

 Therefore, according to the Doctor's peculiar crotchet, it was a true 

 Plum Curculio. Therefore the Baltimore Oriole habitually eats 

 Curculios. Therefore, we must not kill the Baltimore Oriole, no 

 matter how many grapes and cherries it may steal or spoil. There- 

 fore the Illinois Legislature has done right, in fining every man $5 

 for every Baltimore Oriole, otherwise called Hanging-bird, that he 

 may be forced to kill, not in self-defense, but in cherry-defense and 

 grape-defense. Which was the thing to be proved. 



If closely analj'zed, it would be found that a large proportion of 

 the so-called facts, on the strength of which we are commanded to pro- 

 tect all manner of fruit-destroying birds, are based upon foundations 

 as flimsy and as unreliable, as those upon which Dr. Trimble erected 

 his Baltimore castle-in-the-air. 



I dilated so fully in the Practical Entomologist on the best 

 methods of fighting the Curculio, that nothing remains to be said on 

 that subject.* Volumes might be filled with accounts of the different 

 quack remedies, that have been strongly recommended for this pur- 

 pose ; but the reader will probably be satisfied with the following, with 

 which I shall beg leave to conclude the subject. 



Curculio and Gas-Tar. ''The remedies for the Curculio the 

 present season are more numerous than usual. There is seldom any 

 of them worthy attention. The last one appears in a Williamsport 

 paper, from a gardener, who says it is a sure preventive. It is this : 

 'Take a quantity of corn-cobs, with a wire around, terminating in a 

 hook at the end of the cobs ; then dip them into gas-tar until they are 

 well saturated. Hang a dozen or more on the tree in different parts, 

 and no Curculio will disturb the tree.' We heard of this remedy 6 



*^J cannot resist the temptation of quoting here from the Transactions of 

 the Alton Horticultural Society, February 1, 1868, some very valuable re- 

 marks by Dr. E. S. Hull, on the employment of lime to quell the curculio: 



'"A few years since, the lime remedy was quite generally received, as a 

 sure protection to the plum. At. the time of its appearance in print, we were 

 operating with our Curculio-Cateher, and at once discontinued its use on 

 several of our trees, and made a most thorough trial of the lime, which at 

 first promised to be a success. It did not seem to deter the Curculio from 

 depositing its eggs in the plums, but they did not hatch. Later, the weather 

 becoming dry, the succeeding deposits did hatch, and the larvae penetrated 

 the plums as freely as in those not limed. Further experiments with the 

 lime proved that, so long as the weather was wet, the lime, or the caustic 

 properties of the lime, was imparted to the water, and entered the perforation 

 in which the eggs were deposited and destroyed them, but was of no value in 

 dry weather." 



