INSECTS AND OTHER SMALL ANIMALS 301 



The young larvae eat and destroy the tender inside 

 parts of the cotton boll. The Department of Agri- 

 culture of the United States has a corps of expert en- 

 tomologists at work trying to discover some practical 

 means of destroying the pest. 



Plum Curculio. This beetle with a hump on his 

 back not only causes plums to drop before they are 

 ripe and makes cherries 

 wormy, but it does great 

 damage to the apple crop. 

 The female lays her egg 

 under the skin of the fruit, 

 and then makes a crescent- 

 shaped cut in the skin 

 around the point where 

 the egg is deposited. This 

 cut serves to loosen the 

 skin so that the egg may 

 not be crushed with the 

 growing fruit pulp. Nu- 

 merous sprayings with arsenate of lead or with Paris 

 green in the early spring may poison the female before 

 her eggs are laid. If the infested trees are jarred by 

 a sharp blow from a padded club, in the early morning 

 when the beetles are torpid, they may loosen their hold 

 on the tree and fall to the ground. Sheets should be 

 spread under the tree to collect the beetles, that they 

 may be destroyed. 



Bugs and Lice (Hemiptera, half-winged). Many peo- 

 ple call all insects bugs, but the term is properly 

 confined to this order of insects. They are characterized 

 by having the mouth parts transformed into a bill or 

 beak that fits it for sucking juices from plants and 



FIG. 154. The Plum Curculio. 



a, the larva; b, the pupa; c, the beetle; d, cur- 

 culio, on young plum. The straight lines 

 indicate the average natural length. 



