No. 4.] FRUIT TREES AND INSECT FOES. 133 



is at least suggestive of the exercise of some intelligence. The 

 beetle, having selected the spot where an egg is to be placed, 

 attacks the plum at that spot with its snout, working this in 

 until a hole has been made, and at the bottom of the hole de- 

 posits an egg. This egg is very small and 

 also very delicate, while the flesh of the 

 plum at this time is very firm, and as the 

 fruit grows rapidly the hole would soon 

 close up and the egg would be crushed if 

 the process ended at this point. The cur- 

 culio appears to appreciate this, and to 

 prevent such a result at once proceeds to cut a slit like a cres- 

 cent in the plum close by the egg. The flesh of the fruit be- 

 tween the hole and the slit is in this way so far cut off from 

 the remainder of the plum that instead of remaining hard it 

 wilts and becomes soft, and in this way all pressure and con- 

 sequent crushing of the egg is prevented. After an egg has 

 thus been deposited and protected from destruction the beetle 

 moves off to repeat the process elsewhere, each female laying 

 from 50 to 100 eggs. 



The eggs hatch in a week or so, and each little grub thus 

 produced works into the plum till it reaches the stone, around 

 which it feeds until it has reached its full size, which usually 

 requires about three weeks. During this period the puncture 

 and slit on the surface have nearly always become at least 

 partly covered by gum which has escaped from these places, 

 the gum accordingly marking where the curculio has been at 

 work; while the feeding of the grub around the stone very 

 often injures the plum so that it falls off at about this time. 



This dropping of infested plums is very convenient for the 

 grubs in them, for when these are full grown they generally 

 find themselves on the ground with the fruit, which they now 

 leave, working their way into the soil a short distance, where 

 they pupate and after about a month reappear, now as the 

 adult beetle. If the plum has not fallen the same thing hap- 

 pens, except that the grub falls alone instead of inside the 

 fruit. How the adult beetles pass the fall is not known, but, 

 as they are not noticed on the trees at this time except perhaps 

 for a few belated individuals of the first brood, it is not prob- 



