﻿4 BULLETIN 1393, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



the weevils were very resistant to cold. Mills {46) , in 1836, advocated 

 the use of heat to kill the weevils, finding that a temperature of 

 130° to 140° F. would kill all stages without injuring the grain. He 

 recommended using a room heated with hot-water pipes in which to 

 treat infested grain. Gavit {30), in 1849, published a good account 

 of the weevil, stating that the life cycle lasted from 40 to 45 days 

 and that the adults lived for 1 ^ years or more. 



Curtis {14, pp. 323-328), in 1860, published an interesting account 

 of the insect in England, and Taschenberg {68, pp. 63-65), in 1865, 

 gave a good account of the species in Germany. The latter author 

 noted that badly weeviled wheat had a high temperature and stated 

 that one female weevil was supposed to lay as many as 150 eggs. 

 Taschenberg's observations in Germany have more recently been 

 interestingly added to by Zacher {71, 72) and Teichmann and Andres 

 {69). In 1869 Walsh and C. V. Riley {70) noted the vesicatory 

 properties of the granary weevil. These properties were disproved 

 m 1922 by W. A. Riley {57) and Defiel {17). In 1879 Ormerod 

 {Jf.9, 50) wrote short articles on the granary and rice weevils and 

 suggested trapping the beetles in vessels of water, and this idea 

 was further developed by Dendy {18) in 1918. Kompfe {39), 

 in 1879, recorded breeding the weevil from egg to adult in four weeks. 

 Cotes (12), in 1888, while not discussing granarius as one of the grain 



Sests of India, gives an interesting bibliography of grain weevils. 

 )ecaux {16), in 1890, published a few notes on the life history of the 

 weevil and recorded rearing several species of chalcid parasites from 

 it. Chittenden {6, 7, 8), in 1895 and 1896, published short accounts 

 of the habits and depredations of this insect in North America. 



Cole {9), in 1906, found that a fairly moist, ventilated atmosphere 

 of about 80° F. was most satisfactory for the development of the 

 granary weevil; that at 51° to 76° F. weevils were still alive after 

 48 days when kept in a moist atmosphere with food, but that when 

 kept in a dry atmosphere they were dead by the end of the fourteenth 

 day. 



In 1915 Strachov-Koltchin {65) published an excellent account of 

 the life history and habits of the granary weevil in Russia. He 

 found that the length of the larval period is from 213^ to 84 days, 

 according to the prevailing temperature, and that the length of the 

 pupal stage is from 10 to 22 days. He gives data on oviposition 

 based on adults reared from eggs laid in grain by females of 

 unknown ages. 



Dendy and Elkington {19, 20, 21), in a series of reports appearing 

 in 1918 and 1920, discussed the effect of air-tight storage on the 

 granary weevil and the vitality and rate of multiplication of this 

 weevil. 



Back and Cotton {2, p. 5), in 1922, stated that adult weevils may 

 live for 10 months or more, and that in this period each female 

 may lay from 200 to 300 eggs, these statements being summarized 

 from actual data bearing upon the subject. 



Chapman {5), writing in 1923, records experiments indicating 

 that no stage of the granary weevil survives the process of milling 

 semolina and that adults will not oviposit in semolina, with the 

 natural result that macaroni is not iniested as it comes from the 

 press even though it is made from wheat badly infested. 



