INSECTS. 85 



centre of the pea quite to the hull, but leaves the latter and gene- 

 rally the germ of the future sprout untouched. Hence these buggy 

 pease, as they are called by seedsmen and gardeners, will frequently 

 sprout ai*. d grow when planted. The grub is changed to a pupa 

 within its hole in the pea in the autumn, and before the spring 

 casts its skin again, becomes a beetle, and gnaws a hole through 

 the thin hull in order to make its escape into the air, which fre- 

 quently does not happen before the pease are planted for an early 

 crop. After the pea-vines have flowered, and while the pods are 

 young and tender, and the pease within them are just beginning to 

 swell, the beetles gather upon them, pierce the pods, and deposit 

 their tiny eggs in the punctures. This is done only during the 

 night, or in cloudy weather. Each egg is always placed opposite 

 to a pea ; the grubs, as soon as they are hatched, penetrate the 

 pod and bury themselves in the pease ; and the holes through 

 which they pass are so fine as hardly to be perceived, and are soon 

 closed. Sometimes every pea in a pod will be found to contain a 

 weevil grub ; and so great has been the injury to the .crop in some 

 parts of the country that the inhabitants have been obliged to give 

 up the cultivation of this vegetable. These insects diminish the 

 weight of the pease in which they lodge, nearly one-half, and their 

 leavings are fit only for the food of swine. This occasions a great 

 loss, where pease are raised for feeding stock or for family use, as 

 they are in many places. Those persons, who eat whole pease in 

 the winter after they are raised, run the risk of eating the weevils 

 also ; but if the pease are kept till they are a year old, the insects 

 will entirely leave them. 



One remedy consists merely in keeping seed-pease in tight ves- 

 sels over one year before planting them, or putting them, just be- 

 fore they are to be planted, into hot water for a minute or two, by 

 which means the weevils will be killed, and the sprouting of the 

 pease will be quickened. The insect is limited to a certain period 

 for depositing its eggs ; late sown pease therefore escape its attacks. 

 Those sown in Pennsylvania as late as the twentieth of May, are 

 entirely free from weevils. 



THE APPLE-WORM. Among the insects, that have been brought 

 to America with other productions of Europe, may be mentioned 

 the apple-worm, as it is here called, which has become naturalizeo 

 wherever the apple-tree has been introduced. This mischievous 

 creature has sometimes been mistaken for the plum-weevil (Rhyn- 

 Conotrwkelus Nenuphar), but it may be easily distinguished 



