EXTERMINATING NOXIOUS INSECTS. 



239 



The Apple Curculio. 



with extraordinary rapidi- Fig. 91. 



ty, and destroys the great- 

 er part of the apple crop in 

 many localities. The Ap- 

 ple Curculio makes a round 

 cut difficult to see with the 

 eye. The worm remains 

 where the egg was laid 

 until it matures, when it 

 comes out and goes into the 

 ground. The curculio can 

 not fly under a temperature of 7t) degrees. They fly against 

 the wind ; but as yet no one has been able to determine the 

 extent to which they migrate. The Apple or Four-humped 

 Curculio (Anthonomus quadrigibbus) is a much smaller in- 

 sect, with a snout which sticks out more or less horizontal- 

 ly and can not be folded under, and which is as long as the 

 whole body. This insect has narrow shoulders and is broad- 

 er behind, where it is furnished with four very conspicuous 

 humps, from which it takes its name. It has neither the 

 polished black elevations nor the pale band of the Plum 

 Curculio. In short, it differs generically, and does not at- 

 tack the peach. What we have to record in this connec- 

 tion respecting the curculio will be chiefly of a practical 

 character. 



The Plum Curculio, commonly known all over the coun- 

 try as "the curculio," is a small, roughened, warty, brown- 

 ish beetle, belonging to a very extensive family known as 

 Snout-beetles (Curculionidce). It measures about one-fifth 

 of an inch in length, exclusive of the snout, and may be 

 distinguished from all other North American Snout -bee- 

 tles by having an elongate, knife-edged hump, resembling 

 a piece of black sealing-wax, on the middle of each wing- 

 case, behind which humps there is a broad clay -yellow 



