ATTACKING THE FRUIT. 187 



parasite, Porizon conotrachdi Riley, is also an Ichneumon fly, 

 with similar habits and of about the same size as the species 

 just referred to. In Fig. 200, a represents the female, and 

 6 the male, both magnified. Neither of these parasites has 

 yet appeared in sufficient numbers to-act as an efficient check 

 on the increase of the plum curculio. 



No. 95. The Plum-gouger. 



Coccotorus scutellaris (Lee.). 



While this insect has some points of resemblance to the 

 plum curculio, it is in other respects so different as to be easily 

 distinguished. The beetle, which is shown magnified in Fig. 

 201, is about five-sixteenths of an inch long, with the thorax 

 and legs of an ochre-yellow color, while the 

 head and wing-cases are brown, with a leaden- FIG. 201. 

 gray tint, the latter with whitish and black 

 spots scattered irregularly over their surface. 

 The wing-cases are without humps ; the snout 

 is somewhat longer than the thorax, and 

 projects forward or downward, but cannot 

 be folded under the breast as in the case of 

 the plum curculio. It appears in spring 

 about the same time as the plum curculio, but,. instead of 

 making a crescent-shaped slit in the plum, it bores a round 

 hole like the puncture of a pin. 



The eggs are deposited in the following manner. With the 

 minute but powerful jaws at the tip of the snout of the female, 

 a hole is made about four-fifths as deep as the snout is long, 

 which is enlarged at the end and gouged out somewhat in the 

 form of a gourd. The egg is placed in the excavation, and 

 pushed down with the snout until it reaches the receptacle 

 prepared for it. After being deposited, it swells from absorp- 

 tion of the surrounding moisture, and within a few days the 

 young larva escapes. 



On escaping from the egg, it makes an almost straight course 

 for the kernel of the plum, through the soft shell of which 



