185 



the species of weevils and curculios remain in the nuts for 

 some time after the nuts drop to the ground. If such nuts are 

 gathered carefully and thoroughly and the worthless ones fed 

 to hogs or burned many larvae will be destroyed and the genera- 

 tion of beetles that would injure the next season's nuts be 

 greatly reduced. 



CULTIVATION. Cultivation of the soil about nut trees is 

 not often practiced in this section of the country, but, where 

 practicable, spring and summer cultivation may be counted on 

 to destroy many of the insects by breaking up their hiding 

 places in the earth and exposing the larvae and pupae to the 

 air and to natural enemies. 



TRAPPING THE BEETLES. On a previous page of this paper 

 the habit which the adult hickorynut weevil has of hid- 

 ing in dead leaves that adhere to the branches is alluded to. The 

 tendency to hide in these brown, curled leaves is so great that 

 in at least one instance when a medium-sized bearing hickory 

 tree was examined, practically every dead leaf on the branches 

 that could be reached by climbing contained one or more beetles. 

 On that occasion none was found in any other situation. In a 

 small way, I experimented with hanging twigs covered with 

 dead leaves to the branches and on the body of the tree at about 

 the time the beetles were most abundant. I had no difficulty in 

 trapping a considerable number of beetles in this way, and 

 found that the insects could be destroyed very easily by dipping 

 the leaf traps into hot water. 



It is possible that in pecan and hickory groves much good 

 might be accomplished by trapping in this way with bunches 

 of dead leaves or with some other device that would afford 

 shelter for the insects. The method might be extended to some 

 of the other species of nut weevils but, from our knowledge of 

 their habits, it may be said that the hickorynut weevil is the 

 most promising species for experiments of this kind. 



