CURCULIONIDJE. 



489 



dried bud when shaken from the trees. When the fruit is set, 

 the beetles sting the plums, and sometimes apples and peaches, 

 with their snouts, making a curved incision, in which a single 

 egg is deposited. Mr. F. C. Hill shows that the curculio 

 makes the crescent-shaped cut after the egg is pushed in u so 

 as to undermine the egg, and leaA r e it in a kind of flap formed 

 by the little piece of the flesh of the fruit which she has under 

 mined. Can her object be to wilt the piece around the egg 

 and prevent the growing fruit from crushing it?" (Practical 

 Entomologist, ii, p. 115.) The grub hatched therefrom is a 

 little footless, fleshy white grub, with a distinct round light 

 brown head. The irritation set up l)y these larvae causes 

 the fruit to drop before it is of full size, with the larva still 

 within. Now full-fed, it 

 burrows directly into the 

 ground and there trans- 

 forms during the last of 

 the summer. In three 

 weeks it becomes a beetle 

 It also attacks many other 

 garden fruits, such as the 

 cherry, peach and quince. 

 Drs. Harris, Burnett and 

 others, think the larva is 

 but a temporary occupant Fig. 407. 



of the wart on plumb and cherry trees, and not a cause of 

 the disease. The best remedy is jarring the trees, and catch- 

 ing the larvae in sheets and burning them. Dr. Hull's "cur- 

 culio catcher" is an excellent invention for destroying these 

 insects ; it consists of a large inverted white umbrella, fixed 

 upon a large wheelbarrow split in front to receive the trunk 

 of the tree, against which it is driven with force sufficient 

 to jar the curculios from the tree into the umbrella. 



The genus Ceutorhynchus is a small, short, thick curculio, 

 which attacks the seeds of the radish and allied plants. We 

 have noticed a pale gray species on the radish, which probably 

 inhabits the seeds. 



The genus Calandra has a slender snout slightly bent down- 

 wards, a coarsely punctured thorax nearly half as long as the 



