400 INSECT PESTS OF FARM, GARDEN AND ORCHARD 



"If for any reason no timely applications were made and the 

 fields become badly infested, nothing practical can be done until 

 the crop is off. Then mow the beds, rake off all the foliage, and 

 burn it. You will burn with it all the larvae and pupae that are 

 then unchanged. This lessens the number of moths that come 

 to maturity and so helps somewhat for the following year." 



The Strawberry Weevil * 



If the buds appear to be "stung" so that they wither, and 

 if many of the stems are cut so that the buds drop to the ground, 

 the strawberry weevil is the probable cause 

 of the damage. This little weevil is only 

 about one-tenth inch long and so is often 

 unnoticed, and the loss is attributed to other 

 causes. The weevil varies from nearly 

 black to dull red, with a dark spot just back 

 of the centre of each wing-cover. The head 

 is prolonged into a slender curved snout, 

 about half as long as the body. The species 

 is found in most of the States east of the 

 Rockies, but injury has been mosts evere in 

 the Middle and Northern States. 



Life History. The weevils hibernate over 

 winter and appear in spring a few days be- 

 fore the earliest staminate varieties com- 

 mence to bloom. Others emerge during the 

 Fio. 334. The straw- ,, , ,, ... . , 



berry weevil (Antho- nex ^ month, but the most injury is done 

 nomus signatus Say.) within the next two weeks. The injury is 

 and'chltten^enT U^l done by the females, which eat small holes 

 Dept. Agr.) through the outer husk or corolla of nearly 



matured buds, and in these little cavities deposit their eggs. The 

 stem of the bud is then cut so that it hangs by a mere thread and 

 soon falls to the ground. By severing the stem the development of 

 the bud is arrested, thus preventing the outer covering from un- 

 folding and holding the eggs and larvae in the pollen, on which they 

 feed, and by falling to the ground the bud remains moist and will 

 not dry up as it would on the stem. The eggs hatch in from six 



* Anthonomus signatus Say. Family Curculionidce. See F. H. Chitten- 

 den, Circular 21, Div. Ent./U. S. Dept. Agr.; J. B. Smith, Bulletin 225, 

 N. J. Agr. Exp. Sta. 



