338 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



of the curculio, and those avIio eat the first that appear to be 

 ripe, will often encounter this worm, and it is needless to give 

 all such people any description of its personal appearance. 



Here the cedar birds, the robins, and even the crows, come in 

 to our advantage — let tliem alone. The boys will be getting out 

 their guns, and sending for powder and shot — stop them ; these 

 are only premature cherries, generally red on one side only, and 

 in that side a worm; let the birds have them — your crop of 

 cherries will be better the next year. 



You will find plump, fat, full-grown specimens of the larva of 

 the curculio in your apricots, in your earlier apples, in the early 

 York peaches, and in some of your plums. Apples in June and 

 July will be falling by millions : some are only blights — an effort 

 of nature to guard against overbearing; but most of them will 

 be Avormy — the embryo curculio of the next year. Pears and 

 quinces suffer less than the above, but you may often see the 

 crescent mark on these also ; and should the more favorite fruits 

 fail, these varieties could and would be used to prolong the race. 

 We have seen the crescent mark even on berries in the woods, 

 and when all the fruits fail, or before any of them are ready, she 

 wall deposit her eggs in the bark of the plum-tree itself. 



However strange and unnatural it may appear, that the same 

 insect should resort to a nidus so different as a fruit and the 

 bark of a tree, still the testimony is too strong to the fact, to 

 leave it longer in doubt. 



We must not only have a season without any fruit, but the 

 trees also must be destroyed before w^e can hope to be rid of 

 curculio for want of a nidus in which to deposit her egg. But 

 it may be asked, what is the proof of all this ? 



We have seen the curculio making the crescent mark upon the 

 tree. We have watched day after day, and seen the growth of 

 the knot round that mark. We have seen the gum exude from 

 the orifice. We have taken the full grown larva from these 

 knots and could distinguish no difference between them and the 

 larva taken from the plums — have placed them in vessels filled 

 with earth and kept them separate from others, and watched 

 them during the progress of transformation. 



They go the same distance under the ground, make the same 

 kind of a cell in the earth, assume the pupa condition in pre- 

 cisely the same way, and come out the perfect insect in the same 

 time. You may examine the two either with or without a glass, 



