1072 WALTER H. WELLHOUSE 



the beetles eating leaves or tender twigs, but they sometimes feed on the 

 succulent globular leaf galls of cecidomyiid larvae. They will puncture 

 and feed on young apples in the cages when fresh haws are not to be had, 

 but the writer has found none feeding on apples in the field. 



After feeding for a week or ten days the beetles may be found in copula- 

 tion on the branches, and a week or so later, as warm July weather comes, 

 they disappear from the trees. Those kept in breeding cages remained 

 hidden in fallen curled leaves and hollow twigs on the ground all summer 

 and winter without feeding until the next spring. A search for their 

 hiding places in the field revealed a score of the beetles inclosed in curled, 

 dried leaves on the ground beneath their host trees. 



The life cycle may be summarized as follows: The immature stages 

 (egg, larva, and pupa) are completed within the closed blossom in from 

 twenty-seven to thirty-five days, and the remainder of the year is passed 

 in the adult stage. The adults feed on thorns and fruit for two or three 

 weeks after emerging from the blossoms, and then remain quiescent 

 among fallen leaves on the ground until the next spring, when they feed 

 for about a month on the buds before ovipositing. Soon after oviposition 

 the beetles die. In New York the eggs are laid about mid-May and the 

 beetles emerge from the blossoms in June. W. D. Pierce, in a letter to 

 the writer, says the beetles emerge in late March and early April in Lou- 

 isiana. The time of their development in different latitudes is dependent on 

 the opening of the hawthorn blossoms in those latitudes. 



A number of natural enemies of the blossom weevil have been observed. 

 Various birds, especially sparrows, pick open the brown blossoms to eat 

 the larvae and the pupae. Pierce (1912:77) found the weevils to be para- 

 sitized by Catolaccus hunteri and Sigalphus sp. The writer has bred 

 another chalcid, Habrocytus piercei Cwfd., from the larva of the weevil, 

 the adult parasites emerging on June 16 and 17. 



quadrigibbus Say, Tachypterus (Apple curculio) 



The four-humped brownish beetles .of the species Tachypterus quadri- 

 gibbus were found occasionally feeding on the fruit of native hawthorns 

 in June. Fruits of Crataegus punctata were put into rearing cages on 

 June 25, and from these fruits five adults of this species emerged on 

 July 15 and July 18. 



LEPIDOPTERA 

 Papilionidae 



turnus Linn., Papilio (Tiger swallowtail) 



The green larvae of Papilio turnus, with their peculiar eye spots, were 

 found feeding on the foliage of native hawthorns from June 20 to August 2. 

 The species is not very common. 



