ATTACKING THE FRUIT. 



181 



FIG. 192. 



shortly after ft is formed, proceeding in the following manner. 

 Alighting on a plum, she makes with her jaws, which are at 

 the end of her snout, a small 

 cut through the skin of the fruit, 

 then runs the snout obliquely 

 under the skin to the depth 

 of about one-sixteenth of an 

 inch, and moves it backward 

 and forward until the cavity is 

 smooth and large enough to re- 

 ceive the egg to be placed in it. 

 She then turns round, and, drop- 

 ping an egg into it, again turns 

 and pushes it with her snout to 



the end of the passage. Subsequently she cuts a crescent-shaped 

 slit in front of the hole, as shown at df, so as to undermine the 

 egg and leave it in a sort of flap, her object, apparently, 

 being to wilt the piece around the egg and thus prevent the 

 growing fruit from crushing it. The whole operation occupies 

 about five minutes. The stock of eggs at the disposal of a 

 single female has been variously estimated at from fifty to 

 one hundred, of which she deposits from five to ten a day, 

 her activity varying with the temperature. 



The egg is of an oblong-oval form, of a pearly-white color, 

 and large enough to be distinctly seen with the naked eye. 

 By lifting the flap with the finger-nail or with the point of a 

 knife it can be readily found. In warm and genial weather 

 it will hatch in three or four days, but in cold and chilly 

 weather it will remain a week or even longer before hatching. 



The young larva is a tiny, soft, footless grub, with a horny 

 head. It immediately begins to feed on the green flesh of 

 the fruit, boring a tortuous channel as it proceeds, until it 

 reaches the centre, where it feeds around the stone. It attains 

 its full growth in from three to five weeks, when it is about 

 two-fifths of an inch long, of a glassy yellowish-white color, 

 with a light-brown head, a pale line along each side of the 



