103 



Snout-beetle, which comes out so late in the year, living all through 

 the winter and until the following spring. At any rate, as all the 

 other species of the genus {Anthonomus) , whose transformations are 

 known to me, are only single-brooded, the presumption is that this 

 species is the same; and if any one holds the contrary opinion, the 

 burden of proof rests upon his shoulders. 



Whether the Plum Gouger is confined to the Valley of the Mis- 

 sissippi, or whether it occurs also in the Atlantic States, is not quite 

 clear. None of my Eastern correspondents have met with it at the 

 East, and neither Fitch nor Harris describe the species. Indeed, 

 common as it is with us upon Plums, it was unknown to Science, 

 until I described it in 1863 in the Prairie Farmer, with a brief account 

 of its habits, which description was subsequently reproduced in the 

 Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History. (IX., p. 309.) 

 From some observations, however, let fall by Dr. Fitch, I infer that 

 fruit is infested in New York either by this or by some allied species; 

 for in the Address which has been already so often quoted, (p. 18,) 

 he says that "in addition to the crescent-shaped slit, the Curculio 

 wounds the fruit by drilling holes therein with its beak, resembling 

 punctures made by a coarse pin or needle ;" and he adds that "one or 

 more of these punctures may be seen upon almost every fruit which 

 it invades," and that "it is probably for feeding upon the juicy pulp 

 of the fruit that the insect bores these small holes in it." Now, as 

 already stated, I have had 8 or 10 Curculios shut up in a glass vessel 

 for a month, along with a lot of plums that I had previously ascer- 

 tained to be free from punctures or wounds of any kind. These Cur- 

 culios fed freely upon the flesh of tli^ plums. But all their excava- 

 tions were of the open, hemispherical type already described, and 

 there was not a single puncture to be met with, such as the Gouger 

 makes and such as Dr. Fitch asserts to be made by Curculios. I can- 

 not think it at all probable, therefore, that the Curculio, as Dr. Fitch 

 asserts, commonly causes such punctures. Possibly, as this writer 

 appears to be speaking here with more especial reference to the apple, 

 the punctures he mentions may have been made by the Four-humped 

 Curculio {Anthonomus quadrigihlnis. Say,) which species I was the 

 first to publish as infesting the apple in this manner in Illinois, and 

 which causes nearly the same kind of puncture in the Apple, as the 

 Gouger causes in the Plum. But neither has this species been enu- 

 merated as among those, that are injurious to cultivated fruit in the 

 East, either by Dr. Harris or by Dr. Fitch, though I presume that it 

 occurs there, as Say asserts that it is found generally in the United 

 States. 



