ABOUT FEUITS, FLOWEES AND FARMING. 337 



long summers, in the West, they reproduce often in each 

 season. 



2. The mode of ascent has been a matter of doubt. J. J. 

 Thomas, in the Fruit GuUurist says : " It has the power of 

 using its wings in flying ; but whether it crawls up the tree 

 or ascends by flight, appears not to be certainly ascer- 

 tained." 



Downing admits that it flies, but says, "How fiir this 

 insect flies is yet a disputed point, some cultivators aflSrm- 

 ing that it scarcely goes further than a siugle tree, 

 and others beUeving that it flies over a whole neighbor- 

 hood." 



Kenrick says : " They crawl up trees," and he quotes an 

 author as saying : " That of two trees standing so near each 

 other as to touch, the fruit of one has been destroyed and 

 the other has escaped; so Uttle and so reluctantly do these 

 insects incUne to use their wings." Dr. James Tilton says, 

 in the " Domestic Encyclopedia," that " they appear very 

 reluctant to use then* wings, and perhaps never employ 

 them but when necessity compels them to migrate." 



It is true that the curculio, in cold and chilly weather, is 

 disinclined to fly ; but give it a right murderously liot day, 

 and "McGregor's on his native heath again." Just before 

 a thunder storm, in summer, in a still, sultry, sweltering 

 day, they may be seen flying among the trees as bhthely as 

 any house-fly ; alighting on your arm, or hand, and spring- 

 ing off agam as nimbly as a flea. 



All remedies founded on the idea of their crawling pre- 

 ferences will be signal failures. Troughs about trees, bats 

 of wool, bandages of all kinds about the trunk to impede 

 the ascent wUl be found as useful as would high fences to 

 keep crows from a cornfield, or birds from the garden. 



All remedies for this pest succeed to a charm where the 

 curculio does not abound ; and almost every one of them 

 fiiils in places reaUy infested them. 



In cities, and in country places which are far removed 



15 



