ENTOMOLOGY 133 



this has the effect of restraining their development, causing the 

 eggs or minute larvae to die. 



It is always advisable to gather the entire crop, leaving none 

 on the ground, and either place the nuts in tight receptacles or fumi- 

 gate with bisulphid of carbon before marketing. The grubs crawl 

 out soon after the nuts have been gathered, and as they require con- 

 siderable moisture they will die if confined in closed barrels or 

 boxes. The trouble is that enough nuts are usually left .in orchards 

 or in adjoining wood or forest land to serve for the propagation of 

 the insects the following year. In order to make the method of 

 treatment here described thorough, it will be necessary to secure the 

 co-operation of neighboring landowners who grow chestnuts for mar- 

 ket and of all who own woodland containing chestnut and chin- 

 quapin. 



The collection of remnants can be made by children or the un- 

 employed. It is also profitable to allow hogs the run of the orchards 

 to destroy what nuts remain after the crop has been harvested. In 

 the mountainous sections of Virginia and Pennsylvania it is a com- 

 mon practice to fatten swine on the unpicked fallen nuts. Hogs 

 fatten on nuts and acorns as well as on corn, and without expense 

 to the grower. 



The Pecan Weevil. With the increase of pecan culture in our 

 southern States frequent inquiry is made in regard to the cause of 

 the holes in the nuts and during 1903 and 1904 there were reports 

 of great injury of this nature, more particularly to pecans grown in 

 Texas, where considerable loss was reported, and in Georgia, where 

 in one locality 75 per cent of the crop w r as a failure. A shortage 

 has also been reported in Mississippi. The insect involved in these 

 cases is the pecan or hickorynut weevil, a pest which is evidently 

 destined to become one of the principal drawbacks to the cultivation 

 of the pecan. Indeed, in many parts of the South it already divides 

 that distinction with the husk- worm, so that it has been truthfully 

 said that what the husk-worm leaves the weevil destroys. 



The beetle is about the same size as the larger chestnut weevil, 

 from which it may be distinguished by its much duller color and 

 by the relative lengths of the first and second antennal joints, the 

 first joint being longer than the second in the pecan-infesting 

 species. 



The larva differs from that of proboscideus in being decidedly 

 yellow, having the head bright red and wider than long. Its cervi- 

 cal plate also is darker. The pupa is similar to that of the larger 

 chestnut weevil. 



The distribution extends from New York to the Gulf, and west- 

 ward at least to Iowa. 



The life history of this weevil, as it occurs in the pecan in the 

 South, is, so far as can be gathered from reports from Georgia and 

 Texas and from laboratory experiments, very similar to that of the 

 chestnut weevils. According to the observations of Mr. II. A. Ilal- 

 bert, at Coleman, Tex., the female begins to deposit her eggs in 

 August while the pecan is still immature, and the larva, usually 



