THE CURCULIO, OR PLUM-WEEVIL. 75 



Others appear in September and October, and must pass the 

 winter concealed in some secure place. From its size and 

 resemblance to the nut-weevil of Europe, this is supposed 

 to be the species which attacks the hazelnut here. 



It is now well known that the falling of unripe plums is 

 caused by little whitish grubs, which bore into the fruit. 

 The loss occasioned by insects of this kind is frequently 

 very great ; and in some of our gardens and orchards the 

 crop of plums is often entirely ruined by the depredations 

 of the grubs, which have been ascertained to be the larvae or 

 vouno- of a small beetle of the weevil 



J . & Fig. 39. Fig. 40. 



tribe, called Rhynchcenus {Conotrache- 

 lus) Nenuphar,* (Figs. 39 and 40,) the 

 Nenuphar or plum-weevil. This wee- 

 vil, or curculio, as it is often called, is 

 a little rough, dark-brown, or blackish 

 beetle, looking like a dried bud when it 

 is shaken from the trees, which resem- 

 blance is increased by its habit of drawing up its legs and 

 bending its snout close to the lower side of its body, and 

 remaining for a time without motion, and seemingly lifeless. 

 It is from three twentieths to one fifth of an inch long, ex- 

 clusive of the curved snout, which is rather longer than the 

 thorax, and is bent under the breast, between the fore legs, 

 when at rest. Its color is a dark brown, variegated with 

 spots of white, ochre-yellow, and black. The thorax is un- 

 even ; the wing-covers have several short ridges upon them, 

 those on the middle of the back forming two considerable 



O 



humps, of a black color, behind which there is a wide band 

 of ochre-yellow and white. Each of the thighs has two 

 little teeth on the under-side. I have found these beetles as 

 early as the 30th of March, and as late as the 10th of June, 

 and at various intermediate times, according with the for- 



* First described by Herbst, in 1797, under the name of Curculio Nenuphar ; 

 Fabricius redescribed it under that of Rhynchcenus Argula ; and Dejean has named 

 it Conotrachelus variegatus. 



