326 



FARMERS' REGISTER— MOTH-WEEVIL. 



the American Philosopliical Society. " The great 

 loss we have suffered in our corn, and especially 

 in our Avheat, for 17 or 18 years, has put us on 

 making strict hiquiry iulo the causes of a corrup- 

 tion with which our grain is infected. The com- 

 mon opinion is, that when the corn is in bloom, 

 that is to say in the month ()f June, small ichite but- 

 terflies lay their eggs in the flowers. When the 

 grain is ripe, the eggs are inclosed in it, and as 

 soon as the corn is laid up to be kept, it is found to 

 ferment. This fermentation raises an lieat, which 

 hatches the eggs, whence little worms proceed, 

 which are transformed into chrysalides, and these 

 are afterwards metamorphosed into grey butter- 

 flies or moths." In this description we may trace 

 throughout the apparent or real progress of our 

 moth-weevil. 



The insect under consideration is a moth, of a 

 dirty pale yellow color, about the third of an inch 

 in length. Their flight is awkward and leeble, 

 and their bodies so soil and tender as to be liable to 

 injury or destruction from slight causes. They 

 leave their places of concealment in wheat stacks, 

 &c. near sunset, and their flight and numbers are 

 always well marked by the concourse of bats and 

 night-hawks, which are engaged in devouring 

 them. Night-hawks are seldom seen, and never 

 in great numbers, at other times. It may be well 

 doubted whether any of the weevil escape these, 

 enemies, and return to the stack or barn from 

 which they flew. These moths proceed from mag- 

 gots which are in the grains of corn or of wheat, 

 and their origin, or manner of propagation is the 

 great difficulty, and will be the principal subject 

 of these observations. 



Weevil may be produced in myriads wherever 

 corn or wheat is placed in the condition most favo- 

 rable to their increase, but they are seldom, if 

 ever, met with elsewhere: and yet they are not 

 likely to escape observation, wherever they might 

 exist. The strangeness of their being thus appa- 

 rently called into existence merely by grain being 

 made fit for their birth and support, has caused 

 several opinions to prevail with regard to their ori- 

 gin and propagation, which are as much opposed to 

 each other, as to reason and probability. Still, it 

 seemed that we could only choose, as the mostpro- 

 bable explanation, that which seemed the least in- 

 credible. I will pi-oceed to slate the most })romi- 

 nent of these several opinions, and the facts on 

 which they rest — and these liicts, I believe, are un- 

 questionable, however diflcrent, or however false, 

 may have been the inferences drawn from them. 



The first opinion is, that the eggs of the weevil 

 are all laid on our corn and wheat, after the crops 

 are secured in houses and stacks: and this rests on 

 the following facts. 



These insects begin to show plentifully, both in 

 the maggot and winged state, in our wheat and 

 corn in August, and not one is ever seen much 

 earlier than that time. They continue to come out 

 of the grainsaslongas the weather remains warm, 

 if the grain continues in the state favorable to 

 them. That the eggs could not have been deposit- 

 ed before the crops were brought from the fields, is 

 sustained by the fact that not a weevil can be seen 

 there, whereas millions would be necessary to de- 

 posit so many eggs, as will afterwards hatch, du- 

 ring the short time that the grain of wheat, or of 

 corn, is green and soft. 



The second opinion is, that the eggs of the wee- 



vil, like those of the pea-bug and the chinquepin- 

 bug, are deposited in the grain when in a soft 

 state in the field. This opinion has already been 

 stated in the extract quoted above from a French 

 author : and the following .shows a similar opinion 

 as received and prevailing in this country. " A 

 correspondent of the Cambridge Chronicle, who 

 appears to have given much attention to the study 

 of this destructive insect, has written a very sensi-* 

 ble essay upon the subject in that paper, from which 

 the following facts are abstracted : 1st. That when 

 the grain is in an unripe, soft and milky state, and 

 then alone, the parent fly perforates its upper or 

 smaller end, and therein deposits the egg: and 2d. 

 That to destroy the enemy, to kill the vivific princi- 

 ple of the egg, the grain thus impregnated must be 

 secured from that temperature, necessary to pro- 

 creation, which nature uncheated, would be sure 

 to provide, &c." This manner of depositing the 

 egg in the soft grain agrees with nature's opera- 

 tions in propagating other insects, (as we know of 

 the pea- bug,) and seems the only mode possible 

 for so very feeble an insect as the moth-weevil, 

 which scarcely could bore into the ripe and hard 

 grain, and which could not possibly penetrate into 

 a stack of wheat, or even into a bulk of the clean- 

 ed grain : and j'et so large a portion of the grains 

 in both cases will sometimes be found either te- 

 nanted, or hollowed out, by maggots, as to induce 

 the belief that every grain must have contained an 

 egg. The strange fact that the weevil is seldom, 

 if ever seen on corn or wheat in the field, may pos- 

 sibly be caused by the weevil flying more by night 

 than by day, and by one insect being capable (like 

 the queen bee) of laying many thousand eggs. 

 Besides, it is certain that weevil eggs are laid in 

 growing corn, as in the upper grains of some very 

 ibrward ears, a few weevil holes may be seen when 

 they are gathered in autumn — showing that the 

 continued warm weather had hatched and sent 

 forth the weevil, which in later ears would have 

 continued dormant until the next summer. Other 

 fiicts, w hich many know, and all may easily try, 

 seem to prove that weevil eggs are laid in the field, 

 and that almost every grain is used for that purpose. 

 If twenty or thirty heads of wheat, or a lew ears 

 of corn, are taken from the field immediately to 

 a dwelling house, and locked up in close drawers, 

 where no weevil can possibly enter, a very large 

 proportion ol' the grains of wheat will be weevil 

 eaten l)efore October, and still more of the corn 

 during the next summer. That these eggs could 

 have been laid in the field is admitted to be strange 

 and inexplicable — but that they could have been 

 laid afterwards, (according to the first opinion,) is 

 absolutely impossible. 



A third opinion, (which has fewer, but equally 

 determined advocates, and they mostly practical 

 and observant farmers,) draws its support from the 

 incredibility ol' either of the others. This is, that 

 the weevil is a vegetable product, and propagated 

 without the usual intercourse of the sexes, and 

 without animal parentage. I will quote (from the 

 American Farmer, vol. 13,) the reasons for this 

 opinion, contained in a letter written by Mr. Wm. 

 R. Smith, senr. of Scotland Neck, N. C. a farmer 

 of such habits of observation as to give much 

 countenance to any opinion he may support, even 

 when as unphilosophical as this is. 



" I have seen in the Farmer a number of com- 

 munications about the weevil; as I differ with 



