300 



SCHOOL KNTOMOLOGY 



ling moth larva), about one-third of an inch long, whitish, 

 with a small brown head, and usually lies in a curved position. 

 The adult is a thick-set snout beetle, about one-fourth of an 

 inch long, brownish in color, marked with gray and black, 

 and with four black ridged tubercles on the wing-covers. 



The beetles commence to emerge from hibernation in the 

 spring just as apple trees blossom or just as peach blossoms 

 have dropped and feed a little on the buds and unfolding 



leaves and blos- 

 soms, but mostly 

 on the young 

 fruit as soon as 

 it is set. The 

 females at once 

 commence to lay 

 eggs in the 

 young fruit. The 

 female first eats 

 out a hole with 

 her snout and 

 deposits her 

 small, oval, white 

 egg in the cavity. 



She then cuts a small segment around it so that the growth 

 of the fruit will not crush it. This gives rise to the charac- 

 teristic crescent-shaped mark, which has given the insect its 

 name of "little Turk." During her life of about two months 

 a female will lay 100 to 300 eggs and will make as many more 

 feeding punctures from which the gum will often exude on 

 stone fruits. The eggs hatch in from three to five days and 

 the larvae become grown in from two to three weeks. They 

 then enter the soil and form small cells, an inch or two below 

 the surface, in which they transform to the white pupae from 



FIG. 215. The plum curculio (Conotrachelus 

 nenuphar Herbst.). (After Chittenden, U. S. 

 Dept. Agr.) 



a, larva; 6, beetle: c, pupa all much enlarged. 



