662 INSECT PESTS OF FARM, GARDEN AND ORCHARD 



full grown. It then cats a hole through the outside of the pit so 

 that the adult beetle may escape, and then transforms to a pupa. 

 The larva is very similar to that of the curculio, but is a milky 

 white rather than a glossy white and lacks the reddish tinge on 

 the lower surface. Affected plums do not drop as when injured 

 by the curculio. The pupal stage is passed in the pit of the plum 

 and the adult beetle emerges through the hole cut for it by the 

 larva. The beetles emerge a little before the plums ripen and 

 often practically destroy them, as fruit badly punctured becomes 

 gnarly and worthless. The beetles feed on the plums a short time 

 and then seek hibernating quarters for the winter. 



Control. Jarring the trees as for the curculio is the only 

 method of control which has been successfully used, but where 

 the beetles are abundant it would be well to try spraying with 

 arsenate of lead as advised for the curculio (p. 580). 



Plum Aphides 



Three species of aphides are common on the p'um foliage in 

 spring and fall, and often do serious damage by curling up the 

 foliage in the spring and causing it to drop prematurely, thus 

 checking the growth of the tree and preventing proper fruiting. 

 The life histories of the three species are very similar in that the 

 eggs are laid upon the plum in the fall, upon which two or three 

 generations develop in the spring, but in early summer they 

 migrate to other food-plants, from which they return to the plum 

 in the fall. The life history is much the same as that of the 

 apple-aphis (p. 658), and green peach-aphis (p. 597), and need not 

 be rehearsed in detail. 



The Mealy Plum-louse * 



This is a light-green species which is covered by a bluish-white 

 mealy pow r der. It has a long narrow body, one-tenth inch long, 



* Hyalopterus arundinis Fab. Family Aphididce. W. D. Hunter in 

 Bulletin 60, Iowa Agr. Exp. Sta., p. 92, states that Aphis prunifolice Fitch 

 is probably the same species. Certainly H. arundinis and pruni, Aphis 

 pruni and prunifoliae, seem to have been applied to the same species in the 

 economic literature in America. See Lowe, V. L., Bulletin 139, N. Y. Agr 

 Exp. Sta., p. 657. 



