CCBCCUO. 



CURCULIO. 



rtof th*Maf*irelytot.*her. eo Ua K to impossible to dtoooTer. 

 (ram the outward appearanrr in what manner the egg* were deposited, 

 Thto beetle HI extntnely injurious to TUMjraTdTby defoliating the 

 Ti*.aJVr which UM grape* wiU not ripen, and the pro*pect of a 

 turtege U destroyed. Th. rolled up Wave* containing lU yonng 

 eh<mfi be eerefolly eoUectod nd destroyed brfure UM worms have 



Urn. to errive .1 maturity. 



(* 



It* operation* are often 



MMAw /<</ to another beetle which 



to injurious to the vine by gnawing off the young shoot*. It also 

 ' i the roots of raeeoJeat plant*. 



etCeeevjt to a little Weevil only two line* long, with a 

 wry abort bmk, a black bead, body, and thorax ; and reddixh antenna, 

 feet, and wurea**e. It attacks the voung leaves of young fruit- 

 tree*, above all those of the peach, and to both a glutton and an 

 ; for while H devour* meet voraciously, it wlecte only the 

 , portion* of UM leaf, the cellular parenchyma, leaving the 

 midrib end petiole untouched. It appear* very early in spring, and 

 after pairing the female deposit* her egg* in the ground, the grub 

 i liag on the root* of variou* plant* until the following spring. 

 Wbn these ineeot* an, on the tree*, they must be gathered with 

 the band. 



There to a very small species of KkyncMHa, the R. AUiaritt, scarcely 

 a line and a half in length, and of a eteel-blue or green colour, which, 

 l.y injuring the honta.of young tree* and fine grafts, is a source of 

 great annoyance to the planter, sometimes perpetrating great ravage* 

 in nunoriM, without distinction a* to the kind of trees. The 

 fallowing lulejrottin*. account of the operations of this insect is 

 extracted from Roller : 



When the about of the tree or graft to about a span long, the 

 female *lniils one that suit* her, and it does not signify to what 

 kind of fruit-tree it may belong. A* soon as she has reached the 

 moat suitable pert of the shoot, she marks the place first by a prick 

 or by a small cut, where she intend* to cut off the bud or shoot 

 8be then recede* about a line upwards, and begins (with her head 

 turned downward*), on the side which is not next the tree, to bore 

 with ber proboeoU, until she reache* the middle of the shoot With 

 it ahe also widen* the chamber, and prepares it for her offspring. She 

 then places linieilf over the entrance, and lays an egg, which is pushed 

 in by th proboscis and conveyed to the proper place. This operation 

 la*U an hour. Immediately after the female returns to the former 

 place, to cut off the shoot, moving it from one side to the other with 

 her probceeU, until she baa cut it a certain depth. She then gives 

 some decided thrust*, which she continues, without fatigue, till the 

 hoot only hangs by the under part When she observes this, she 

 geta np on the point of the twig, to make it fall over by her own 

 weight It not unfreq-iently happens that it falls immediately, the 

 hoot having been previously so cut as to remain attached to the 

 tarn only by the bark. If the beetle however find* that the pierced 

 hoot doe* not (all, she turns back to labour again at the same place, 

 ad eute (till deeper through the branch ; and if she is not able to 

 divide it, she get* up once more to the further extremity, by which 

 Mint the generally succeeds in bringing the separated branch to the 

 ground. When thto labour to over, she feeds upon a leaf, scraping off 

 the epidermis, which serves her a* food." This operation i* repeated 

 day after day for the same purpose ur til the middle of June, at the 

 rate of two egg* a day, the insect i .posing under a bent leaf at 

 night Her work to interrupted by 4 bad weather. When the egg i* 

 hatched, nnially in eight days, tor grub eat* the pith of the shoot 

 which fall* off, upon which it leaves its habitation, and buries itself 

 M the earth, when it mike* a *ubtrraneous vault for it* winter 

 nsiitonn*. When the spring come*, it appears a* a Weevil to pursue 

 the avocations above d-ncrilwd. The beetle to timid, and drops from 

 the leaf when approached, so that, when we proceed to gather them, 

 which should be done in order to destroy them (besides collecting 

 and destroying all fallen and injured ihooU where their egg* may be), 

 we moot approach with caution to gain our object 



There an two species of Weevil which attack the wood of the 

 pint tree, namely, the //fo6iiu A bietit and Piaodtt notatta ; the first is 

 UM larger sfeoise, and usually precede* the latter in its atUcki 

 UM one to plentiful, the other to also abundant, and vice versa ; the 

 cease of thto correspondence in numbers being, that they usually 

 only Meek neb tree* as an sickly, but when the supply of sickly 

 tree* fails, they an apt to hav* recourse to the more healthy plant*, 

 and thu* may destroy valuable plantations. They apparently attack 

 sickly tree* in preference, since in such the motion of the sap is 

 ' k, an<l there to not no much ra*in exuded a* to oppo*e and 

 their operations. Th* larger insect attacks both bark and 

 buds, an 1 dangerously wounds such ramifications of the root* a* are 

 near the MrfSac* of the ground. The wound to an ugly bean-slmped 

 car. The second species chiefly confines it* attack* to the bark and 

 sickly oonea. The wounds it make* resemble pin-hole*, and an often 

 extremely nunnroin. On account of their caution and timidity, both 

 bee* t*je*ot, although numerous when present, an very difficult 

 i > ftod. The best prevctttive of their ravages to to root np and burn 

 Mb yonng trees in the plantation a* are sickly. 



There to a specie, of CWWre, the C. Paimarum, which in South 

 America attacks the pith of the palm-tree. It* larva to called by the 

 eclonUU Ver Palmtte, and to eeteemeii a delicacy. 



In the third volume of the 'Journal of the Royal Agricultural 

 Society of Kngland,' Mr. Curtis has given an account of two little 

 Weevils, CeutorliyncJnu luiimtfit and C. contracttu, which injure turnip 

 crops by puncturing the leaves of the young turnips, sometimes 

 causing as much damage as the Turnip-Fly (J/altica ffemonun). They 

 should tie collected from the turnip-flowers left for seed, by shaking 

 the stalks over a bog-net or cloth, and sweeping the insects into a 

 pail of lime and water. The insects should afterwards be destroyed 

 by boiling, as the hardness of their horny coat renders it no easy 

 matter to destroy them otherwise. 



v Weevils attacking the reproductive organs of plants. There 

 is a little brown Weevil which often destroys our prospects of a 

 pli-Miful supply of apples. As soon as the spring comes it goes 

 forth to seek the apple-tree, and when the blossom-buds appear, and 

 are full of sap, it deposits its eggs in them, so that the grubs an 

 hatched in the fint warm weather, and immediately proceed to destroy 

 the generative organs of the plant, eating up the innermost first. It 

 is called Anllt'inomiu Pomorum. The affected flowers swell out, and 

 form a sort of cup, within which, when we open them, we find the 

 torva in the form of a small white maggot with a black head. The 

 beetle selects the finest apple-blossoms to be the cradles of its off- 

 spring. It bores a hole in them with it* proboscis, making a canal 

 even to the parts of fructification ; then laying it* eggs at the entrance 

 it turns round and pushes them in with its snout as far as it can. 

 This operation it repeat* as long as it has eggs to lay, walking from 

 blossom to blossom, choosing the finest and calmest days i 

 labours. Nothing but gathering the beetles and destroying the 

 affected Bowers can arrest their progress in the orchard, and by doing 

 so we may diminish their number, though, it ia to be feared, hopes of 

 their extirpation are vain. 



There is another Weevil of the same genus, the A. Pyri, very 

 similar in appearance, which destroys both blossom and leaf-buds of 

 the pear, and which, when not too numerous, may even increase the 

 crop by preventing an overweight of fruit The ascent of both these 

 beetles up the trunks of the trees may be impeded by circles of 

 paper covered with tar. 



The fruit of the plum is destroyed by a Weevil called Rhynrhita 

 cnprtui, which sometimes also makes use of the soft spring shoots of 

 plum and apricot trees. The female beetle attacks the plums when 

 they are about the size of almonds. She has two objects in view : 

 first, to deposit her egg in the pulp ; and second, to sever the fruit 

 from the tree in order that the larva may bury itself in the earth 

 preparatory to its final metamorphosis. The first purpose she effects 

 by cutting the epidermis with her proboscis, raising it, boring a hole 

 in which her egg is to be'laid, and after that has taken place covering 

 it carefully over with the raised skin so as to prevent the access of 

 water. Before she seta about this, she half cuts through the pedun- 

 cles ; and when the egg-laying operation is completed she severs the 

 stalk entirely ; the joint operations occupy from two to three hours. 

 It takes the grub five or six weeks to devour the pulp of the plum. 

 If left undiflturbed, the beetle never leaves the tree until it has 

 pierced and thrown down every plum it can find. The only remedy 

 or preventive to its destructive industry is to gather and destroy the 

 affected plums. Similar ravages are committed on the apple by ano- 

 ther species of Rhynchita, R. liaechiu, the hue of which U beautiful 

 purple and gold. 



In the first volume of the ' Transactions of the Entomological 

 Society,' Mr. W. Christy has made known a Weevil, the Catamlra 

 IK/I, which destroys tamarind stones. There are sometime* 

 thirty or forty of those \Veevils in a single stone. Ue was led to seek 

 for them from finding that the stones of tamarinds sometime* 

 crumbled to pieces in the mouth. In such cases the albumen was 

 perforated in every direction, and the cavities filled with a brow ni-li 

 powder. Those in which he first found the insect exhibited no tr.i< o 

 of puncture in the epidermis. It would be curious to ascertain in 

 v. !i it manner the parent insect deposits her eggs. If she attacks the 

 fruit in an advanced state she must have to make her way through 

 the external shell, the internal acid pulp, and the leathery envelope 

 of the inside, before arriving at the stone itself. 



A more destructive species of Calami rn is the Corn-Weevil, C. gra- 

 naria. In this cane the maggot also is found in the centre of grains 

 without traca of an aperture. The insect probably lays the ezg in the 

 blossom. It is often very abundant in old granaries. The bread 

 made from the affected flour is supposed sometimes to be unwhole- 

 some. Perfect ventilation and a constant shifting of the grain are the 

 mi-dies. Mr. Mills state* ('Kiit. Tnms' v..l. i.) that a boat of 

 110* Fahrenheit <liil not prevent the development of the insect, whilst 

 from 130" to 140 killed them. 



The HrnfMiu granariat attacks peas and beans, selecting the finest 



seed* in which to deposit her eggs. The bean- MM.] |..M ii. |.u in Knit 



ulfiT sometimes severely from this beetle. It is a little black punc- 



iih. ?:, It - at ti..- BUD* . tceat. /'. /YW. n. 



larger species, common in peas from Germany and Russia, is in \rtli 

 i at times such a pest, that in some States, towards the 

 beginning of the last century, the cultivation of peas was abandoned 

 in consequence of its ravages. 



The family of CurctUiontiiat, as at present constructed, has 1 n 



made the subject of special research on the C<inliii"iit 1>_\ M. Si lin- 



