76 



THE PRACTICAL ENTOMOLOGIST. 



plum, she then, with the minute jaws placed at the 

 tip of her snout, proceeds to make the siujfular 

 crescent-shaped slit in the skin of the fruit, which 

 is characteristic of the species, and to which the 

 popular name of ''little Turk" refers. In this slit 

 she excavates with the same instruments a hole 

 such as a pin would make, to as great a depth as 

 the length of her snout will allow, widening and 

 enlarging it a little at the bottom so as to make it 

 somewhat gourd-shaped. Depositing in the slit a 

 single egg, she next proceeds to crowd it down with 

 her snout, to the bottom of the hole, where the ca- 

 vity is sufficiently large to avoid all danger of the 

 flesh of the injured plum growing in upon and 

 crushing the egg. She then repeats the same pro- 

 cess upon other plums, or occasionally to the extent 

 of three or four eggs upon the same plum, till her 

 stock of eggs is exhausted. According to Dr. 

 Trimble, who has dissected many of these insects, 

 the greatest number of eggs ever found by him in 

 a single female " Curoulio" was twenty-five; {Fruit 

 Insects p. 79 ;) so that certain calculations, which 

 have been based upon the assumption, that each I'e- 

 male "Curculio" lays about two hundred eggs, ap- 

 pear to be founded in error. After a few days' 

 time, the egg deposited in the plum hatches out in- 

 to a whitish, legless grub with a scaly head, which 

 bores a tortuous path through the flesh of the plum, 

 eating its way as it goes. Finally, after the lapse 

 of several weeks, the plum falls to the ground, its 

 natural growth having been checked by the work- 

 ings of the grub, and gum having very generally 

 exuded from the orifice of the original wound. The 

 larva then bores its way out, having by this time 

 reached its full growth, and penetrates into the 

 ground a few inches beneath the surface, where, in 

 a cavity hollowed out for that purpose, it changes 

 into the pupa state, and at length, in three or lour 

 weeks' time, comes out in the form of the perfect 

 Beetle. 



But plums, though the natural food of this in- 

 sect, and the only wild fruit upon which I have 

 ever found it, are not the only fruit which it at- 

 tacks in our Gardens and Orchards. Among our 

 imported stone-fruits, it prefers the nectarine even 

 to the plum, and it also attacks the apricot, the 

 peach and the cherry. As some have doubted 

 whether so small a fruit as a cherry, could raise the 

 "Curculio" to its perfect state, it may be well to 

 state here, that according to Dr. Harris " the so- 

 called chcrri/-ii}orm, which is very common in this 

 fruit when gathered from the tree, produces at ma- 

 turity the same Curculio as that of the plum " 

 (/«/. Lis. p. 77); and Mr. S. S. Rathvon, of Penn- 

 sylvania, tells me that he has bred -'curculio" from 

 the cherry, in a glass jar lialf filled with earth. Of 

 late years, the "Curculio" has also infested pip- 

 fruit, more especially apples; pears and quinces being 

 not very much to its taste. In every case, with the 

 single exception of the cherry, the fruit containing 

 the fully developed "Curculio" larva dies and falls 

 prematurely to the ground. But where, as some- 

 times happens, especially in pip-fruit, the egg fails to 

 hatch out, or the young larva perishes premature- 



ly, there the fruit is not killed, but simply deform- 

 ed and stunted, as may very often be seen in apples. 

 Out of the choicest apples selected for exhibition 

 at our State Fairs, a large proportion will be found, 

 on close inspection, to be more or less blemished 

 from this cause, being studded iu places with brown 

 more or less rotten spots, and unnatural hollows 

 and protuberances. The utilitarian, perhaps, may 

 object that, for practical purposes, such apples arc 

 none the worse ; but somehow or other most people 

 prefer apples with fair, smooth, rosy checks; and 

 even in the matrimonial market, young ladies that 

 are pitted with the small-pox are rather at a dis- 

 count. 



As with a great many other insects that go un- 

 derground to assume the pupa state, the pupa is li- 

 able to perish, unless the earth in which it lies is 

 kept moderately moist. Hence, as Dr. Trimble 

 has shown, in clay soils which are subject to bake 

 with long-continued drought, almost the entire 

 crop of "curculios" sometimes perishes in very dry 

 summers. This explains a fact which otherwise 

 might seem unaccountable, namely, that in certain 

 clayey localities a fair crop of plums may be obtain- 

 ed almost every year, without taking those precau- 

 tions which, in moister soils, are absolutely neces- 

 sary to secure a crop. 



So far, we have traced the history of the " Cur- 

 culio" from the egg to the perfect beetle. Some 

 of these perfect beetles come out as early as the 

 middle of July — some in August — some as late as 

 the latter end of September. Hence, as it seemed 

 incredible that a beetle coming out in July should 

 live all through the winter, and until the next sea- 

 son's crop of plums were set, and as no one had as 

 yet ascertained that any "Curculio" hybernated in 

 the beetle state. Dr. Fitch and, in the earlier edi- 

 tion of his work, Dr. Harris, have suggested the 

 hypothesis that the species is double-brooded ; the 

 second brood being supposed, from the analogy of 

 a very distinct snout-beetle which attacks the plum 

 in Europe {Rhi/nchites ciipretis), to lay its eggs in 

 the twigs of the infested trees, the larvae proceed- 

 ing from which eggs pass the winter in the twig, 

 and afterwards produce the beetles that sting the 

 fruit in the following summer. {N. Y. Rep. II. § 

 52, and InJ. Ins. edit. 1841, p. 68.) But, in the 

 first place, there is no proof of any such fact; and, 

 in the second place, I have already shown that Dr. 

 Trimble actually found specimens of the "Curcu- 

 lio" hybernating under the shingles of a roof, in 

 the chinks of stone walls, and under the bark of an 

 apple-tree; (/'/•«('< 7;i.src^<, p. 99 ;) and since then 

 I have been informed by Mr. Rathvon, that he has 

 l#uself found specimens hybernating under the 

 bark of the cherry and the wild cherry in the 

 months of March and November. Dr. Harris has 

 also recorded the fact, that he has ''found tl^e 

 beetles as early as the 30th of March," (//y. Ins. 

 p. 75,) apparently in the latitude of Massachusetts 

 — a fact which is quite irreconcilable with the hy- 

 pothesis of their having come out from the pupa 

 state at so early a date in so cold a climate, and 

 evidently implies that they must have passed the 



