152 



The Sweet Potato 



in south Texas, gives the following figures in reference 

 to the life history: A single female has been known 

 to deposit more than 300 eggs, as many as ten in a 

 single night, the process of laying a single egg being 





FiQUKE 22. — Sweet potato beginning to dry, showing punctures 

 made by the swcft potato weevil, chiefly for food. Interior highly 

 infested and root much shrunken. 



quite protracted. The eggs are not laid in feeding 

 punctures but in cavities bored especially for them. 

 These holes are usually at an angle of about sixty de- 

 grees, while the feeding punctures are practically per- 

 pendicular. Transformation from egg to adult lasts, 

 in warm weather, about thirty days, and in cooler 

 weather as many as forty-two days, or a longer leng-th 

 of time, varying with temperature. The pupa period 

 lasts eight or ten days; the egg four to eight, and the 

 larva or feeding stage from fourteen to twenty-eight 

 days. 



Cordrol. 



The sweet potato weevil breeds exclusively on sweet 

 potato and closely related plants, and although it is 



