390 



Kansas State Board of Agriculture. 



of the Utah Experiment Station until 1907. It has been increasing and 

 spreading until now it has spread not only over several counties in North- 

 ern Utah, but has extended its area of diffusion northeastward into 

 Wyoming and northward into Idaho. 



Habits and Life History. 



The insect passes the winter as an adult beetle hibernating in the 

 crowns of the alfalfa plant, under thick grass, weeds, rubbish and leaves ; 

 in hay or straw stacks, in barns where hay is stored, or in any well- 

 sheltered place available at the time they are going into hibernation. 

 In the spring, as soon as the alfalfa is started sufficiently to furnish 

 food, the beetles emerge and attack the young plants. About April the 

 females begin laying their eggs in the stems or on the buds and leaves, 

 and this continues until early July. In the early spring, while 

 the plants are small, the females often push their eggs down be- 

 tween the leaves or into the bud, but the usual method is to insert them 

 in punctures made in the stem. This puncturing of the stem often 

 seriously injures young plants. In about ten days the eggs hatch, and 

 the young larvae, at first white, but soon turning to an alfalfa-green 

 color, feed in the stems and the buds and on the leaves. (Fig. 337.) 

 They attack the young leaves and crown, so that a badly infested field 

 will not make a sufficient growth to be mowed. The larvae do not have 

 true legs, and when full grown are from one-fourth to near a half inch 



FIG. 337. Alfalfa weevil. Adults, clustering on and at- 

 tacking sprig of alfalfa; natural size. (After Webster, U. S 

 Dept. Agr.) 



