PLUM CURCULIO 



103 



blooming time, seeking quarters in the trees. Egg-laying occurs 

 during spring and early summer, when the old beetles die. The 

 eggs, numbering anywhere from one hundred to five hundred 

 from a single female, hatch in from three to seven days, and the 

 grub normally feeds for from fifteen to twenty days in the fruit, 

 at which time it leaves the apple or plum and enters the ground. 

 It hollows out the soil and transforms into a pupa, in which stage 

 it remains for about a month, then emerging as a beetle, going to 

 trees and feeding on fruit, but does not lay eggs in the fall. Beetles 



FIG. 126. Blossoms from which the petals have fallen; in good condition 

 the spray. It is too late to apply calyx spray to two apples on left 

 Bull.. 210.) 



to receive 

 (Gillette and List, Col. 



also feed to some extent on the young buds in the spring, before 

 the blossoms appear. Its work and life history in connection with 

 the plum is practically identical with that in the case of the apple. 

 Apples or other fruits infested with the larvae, for the most part, 

 drop to the ground. This allows the completion of the life history. 

 It is claimed, however, that in much of the fruit which does not 

 drop, the development of this pest is prevented. Many of the larvae 

 die before the larval stage is half completed, leaving matured fruit 

 with the sunken scars on the surface as above indicated, and streaks 

 of hardened tissue in the flesh. 



