IIO SEVENTH REPORT OF THE FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 



varieties which are least susceptible, the margin of profit left after the worms 

 destroy a considerable portion of the crop is sufficiently high to induce many to 

 invest in the business, even when possessed of the certain knowledge of this annual 

 loss. If this damage by weevils can be decreased or made nil, the profits, which 

 even now are high, will of course increase in like proportion. 



The whole question of damage by weevils is at present something of a lottery at 

 best, since not only orchards and groves but individual trees of the same variety are 

 infested in widely varying degrees, and to a different extent each season. One 

 plantation may be seriously injured during a season, while another a few miles away 

 remains exempt ; or one portion may be affected and the remainder left uninjured. 

 The same is true of individual trees, although there are varieties, as the Cooper, 

 which seems a special prey for the weevil at all times and places. 



The chestnut weevil is of the beetle family of insects, and is one of the several 

 species of curculio which infest nuts. The genus Balaninus, to which it belongs, 

 includes seven species, all of which are nut weevils ; but only two, viz., B, carya- 

 trypes and B. rectus, wonk serious injury to the chestnut. It is the larval form of the 

 insect which works within the chestnut and renders it unfit for use. The larva or 

 grub is footless, white or cream colored, with a red or yellowish head, and a cylin- 

 drical body about half an inch long. The larvae of B. rectus are of smaller size than 

 those of B. caryatrypes. The adults are yellowish in color with rusty lines and 

 spots on the wing covers, and are characterized by their extremely long and slender 

 snout or beak. Their powers of flight are rather limited. In the male beetle the 

 beak is about the length of the body ; in the female it is twice as long as the body. 

 The function of the beak is to pierce the immature burs and nuts and prepare a 

 place for the reception of the eggs. 



The life history of the insect, briefly stated, is as follows : The winged beetles 

 appear about the time, or soon after, the trees begin to bloom ; but egg laying is 

 delayed until the staminate catkins drop, and the young burs are of considerable 

 size. Then with their long beaks the beetles pierce a hole through the thick bur 

 and into the tender nut itself and excavate a tiny cavity, in which the female 

 deposits from one to four eggs. The tiny wound in the nut soon heals over com- 

 pletely, thus effectively protecting the eggs and grubs within. Eggs are often laid 

 in different parts of the same nut; hence we frequently find the mature nuts har- 

 boring several grubs, sometimes as high as fifteen or twenty. As soon as the eggs 

 are laid the winged beetles die, there being only one brood each season. The eggs 

 hatch in a few days and the larvae live and work within the growing nuts, reaching 

 maturity about the time, or a little after, of the autumn ripening and falling of the 



