THE CURCULIO. 83 



is the Bruchus Pm of Linnaeus, Plate 6, Fig. 9, and is so well known to farmers and 

 gardeners as to require little further description. This insect is somewhat similar in 

 size and appearance to the Curculio, and some writers have said they are identical. 

 A reference to the figures of the two, as drawn on Plate 6, will show a marked dif- 

 ference ; the crushing test between the thumb and finger will give additional proof. 

 The Pea-bug comes to its growth and undergoes its transformation in the substance 

 of the pea. By opening peas containing them, late in the fall, you may see the young 

 insects fully matured, but they will remain there till the warm weather of the next 

 spring, unless the peas are kept in apartments artificially heated ; then they will escape 

 in the winter. 



Where the great army of Pea-bugs keep themselves from the beginning of 

 warm weather till this time (June nth) it is difficult to say. We sometimes meet 

 with them in places of concealment, as we do ants, spiders, flies, lady-bugs, squash- 

 bugs, &c., &c. torpid when cold animated into life when warmer weather comes. 

 We find them in the crannies of wooden buildings, fences, and walls, and there they 

 wait their proper season. These early peas, planted in winter, are evidently too 

 early for the Pea-bug. She is- not yet ready. The Imperials, the Champions, and 

 Marrowfats, and those sown in the fields, will come at her time. Those planted in 

 midsummer for fall use will also escape. I have seen no account of the exact num- 

 ber of days that this crop is in danger from this enemy, but it is a shorter period than 

 is occupied by the Curculio for depositing her eggs. This beetle, like the Curculio, 

 and most others of the Coleoptera, has but one generation in a year. 



The Curculio comes to maturity in the last half of July, during August and 

 September, and some even in October. The mystery with many writers has been 

 Where does it live till the next May, or till the fruit comes to the proper size for it 

 to use ? and many of these writers lay great stress on this, as if it was important to 

 be ascertained. Naturalists should know ; they should know a great many other 

 things that could be learned by patient investigation ; but practically, fruit-growers 

 have no occasion for such knowledge. They know that with the coming of their 

 young fruits will come also the Curculio, unless they have destroyed it in its embryo 

 condition in the blighted fruit the year before. Where they come from or how they 

 pass the winter will be of little avail to prevent them from destroying the coming 

 crops. Let all the young grubs of the Curculio in the blighted, wormy fruits, be 

 destroyed while in that state, and the natural history of its winter condition will be of 

 little consequence. Let this be done throughout a neighborhood, a township, 

 county, or state, and the sheet and jarring process will not be so much required. 

 The man who owns an island can, with proper care for a single year, rid himself 



