THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



11 



sly, and take the meat out of the mouths of their 

 future ofl'spring. Hence, with all these enemies 

 lying in wait for it, the particular species of 

 Mason bee, whose biography we are discussing, 

 has been taught by a wise Providence to bafl3.e 

 those enemies, to a veiy considerable extent, by 

 constructing a kind of blind passage way into 

 its house ; and this passage way it leaves un- 

 touched, as long as it is obliged by circumstances 

 to keep its entrance hall wide open, but so soon 

 as it is able permanently to close up the entrance 

 hall, it pulls the passage way down, and uses 

 the material for blocking up the door way. 

 C'ould human intelligence go any further? And 

 yet many otherwise well educated people believe 

 tirmly, that •' Bugs," as they are pleased to call 

 tliem, have no more sense than so many stocks 

 and stones! 



The Curculio and its Habits— Five New Facts Re- 

 specting it— Dr. Hnlls Cnrcnlio-catcher— Various 

 Noxions Insects Infesting Fruit Trees — Two 

 Beneficial Insects Commonly Found on Fruit 

 Trees— Travels among the Frnit (irowers. 



June 19th. 



Dr. Hull showed me a large lot of Snout 

 beetles which he had jarred off his fruit trees at 

 the very commencement of the season. On 

 counting them carefully, I found that there were 

 in the whole lot '2.54 Plum Curculios (C'ono- 

 frachdux nemiphar, Herbst), and only 40 Plum 

 Gougers {Anthononms 2M'unicida,Wa,lsh) , show- 

 ing that the former were early in the season 

 about six and a half times as numerous as the 

 latter, in the ueigiiborhood of Alton. In Central 

 Illinois, according to Mr. Francis, of Spring- 

 field, and also iu Northern Illinois, the Gougers 

 are, in the early part of the season, about as 

 numerous as the Curculios. But something 

 must be attributed, in the case of the Alton 

 experiment, to the fact of the gougers not 

 iarring off the trees nearly as readily as the 

 curculios. Later in the season, Dr. Hull assures 

 me that the gougers become comparatively 

 much scarcer; so that he considers that his 

 original estimate, of the curculios being on the 

 average in the proportion of fifty to one v/iih 

 regard to the gougers, is not far from the truth. 

 According to him, the end of the curculio 

 season near Alton is about July 1st; but along 

 through July and August he meets with a fpw 

 curculios npon jarring the trees— say about one 

 to every ten trees in July, and one to every 

 twenty in August. In the month of September 

 they are very rare; and, according to him, no 

 peaches are stung by them after the beginning 

 of July. 



Dr. Hull infoi-ms me of five facts, relative to 

 the natural history of the Plum Curculio, with 

 which I was previously unacquainted: 



1st. Curculio eggs deposited in fruit early in 

 the spring, during a warm spell which is fol- 

 lowed by a cold spell of at least five days dura- 

 tion, always perish and fail to hatch out. The 

 eggs require a temperature of about 70 degrees 

 in order to hatch. 



2d. In the part of Dr. Hull's orchard which 

 adjoins the woods, he finds that, for about four 

 rows of trees, it is almost impossible to subdue 

 the curculio by jarring. The curculio here 

 commences upon the fruit immediately upon its 

 first appearance; in the other parts of the 

 orchard not until several days after its first ap- 

 pearance. [Is not this owing to the fact that 

 those curculios that have passed the winter 

 under the bark of trees, etc., in the woods, stay 

 where they hybernated, after coming out in the 

 spring, until they are ready to lay their eggs, 

 and then wing their way to the nearest stone- 

 fruit and immediately lay eggs therein; while 

 those curculios that pass the winter under the 

 bark of trees, etc., in the orchard itself, pass the 

 same interval between coming forth from 

 hybernation and laying eggs in the fruit, in the 

 orchard itself, and may consequently be fought 

 by the method of jarring to much better advant^ 

 age? B. D. W.] 



.3d. When peach trees are cut down to the 

 root, and throw up very strong and vigorous 

 shoots (say as thick as one's wrist) the same 

 season, the well known crescent cuts, with eggs 

 in them, are often to be seen in the bark in 

 June. Such trees are haunted by the curculio 

 fully as much as bearing plum trees; and late 

 in the season they are better hunting ground foi- 

 curculios than any plum trees. [It will be re- 

 collected by entomologists that fifty or sixty 

 years ago Rev. F. V. Melsheimer, of Pennsyl- 

 vania, stated that the larva of the curculio some- 

 times lived under the bark of the peach tree ; 

 but up to this day no confirmation of the 

 statement of this most accurate naturalist has 

 hitherto been published.* B. D. W.] 



4th. Stone fruits stung by the curculio, and 

 containing curculio larvas, that fall upon naked 

 ploughed ground where the sun can strike 

 them, wither away, and the larviE that are con- 

 tained in them die. Dr. Hull informs me that 

 he gives orders to the man that runs his 

 " curculio-catcher " to lay stuug peaches, when 

 convenient, in such situations, instead of carry- 

 ing them away to be scalded, or feeding them 

 out to stock. 



•Sec Fitch's If. Y. Reports 11, §. rv.>, p. 33. 



