THE BLACK CORN-WEEVIL 71 



colder. During cold weather in the South the 

 weevils become numb and quiet, and this has led 

 many people to believe that the little rogues were 

 dead." 



John Matthews said that most of the weevils are 

 in the cribs during the winter and wished to know 

 how they got to the fields. "Do they travel from 

 the cribs to the cornfields?" he asked. 



The entomologist told him that no breeding places 

 had been found in the fields in the spring, and as the 

 weevils leave the cribs when the corn is badly eaten, 

 he thought that the pests traveled from the cribs 

 to the fields. He also explained that breeding 

 in the fields did not begin in earnest until the corn 

 had begun to harden after the roasting-ear stage. 

 He said further : "At this time the corn that may be 

 still in the cribs is so badly weevil-eaten that in 

 many cases the pests are forced to find something 

 to eat ; one will notice this during June and July, 

 and during this time most of the weevils leave the 

 crib. In the spring the weevils have been found in 

 the fields eating other things, but the numbers 

 found at that time could not very well account for 

 the large number laying eggs in the fields when the 

 corn hardens." 



"Let us come back to the question George Brown 

 asked some time ago," exclaimed Fred Hamilton. 

 "Is there anything we can do right now to save 



