EXTERMINATING NOXIOUS INSECTS. 241 



ty. After this is accomplished, she resumes her first posi 

 tion, and by means of her snout pushes the egg to the end 

 of the passage; and afterwards deliberately cuts the cres- 

 cent in front of the hole, so as to undermine the egg and 

 leave it in a sort of flap. The whole operation requires 

 about five minutes; and her object in cutting the crescent 

 is evidently to deaden the flap, so as to prevent the grow- 

 ing fruit from crushing the egg. Now that she has com- 

 pleted this task, and has gone off to perform a similar op- 

 eration on some other fruit, let us from day to day watch 

 the egg which we have just seen deposited, and learn in 

 what manner it develops into a curculio like the parent 

 which produced it, remembering that the life and habits of 

 this one individual are illustrative of those of every Plum 

 Curculio that ever had, or that ever will have, an existence. 

 We shall find that the egg is oval and of a pearly-white 

 color. Should the weather be warm and genial, this egg 

 will hatch in from four to five days ; but, if cold and un- 

 pleasant, the hatching will not take place for a week, or 

 even longer. Eventually, however, there hatches from the 

 egg a soft, tiny, footless grub, with a horny head ; and this 

 grub immediately commences to feed upon the green flesh 

 of the fruit, boring a tortuous path as it proceeds. It riots 

 in the fruit, working by preference around the stone, for 

 from three to five weeks, the period varying according to 

 various controlling influences. The fruit containing this 

 grub does not, in the majority of instances, mature, but 

 falls prematurely to the ground, generally, before the grub 

 is quite full-grown. We have known fruit to lie on the 

 ground for upward of two weeks before the grub left, 

 and have found as many as five grubs in a single peach 

 which had been on the ground for several days. And 

 yet it is an unusual occurrence to find more than one or 

 two grubs in a plum. Some entomologists have stated 



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