APPENDIX 189 



be kept clean, and all the useless rough pieces removed. 

 All rubbish, &c., round them should be cleared away, so 

 as to give the beetles no hiding places. Shaking the 

 trees over sheets spread below is a good remedy, as the 

 beetles fall to theground when frightened. Bandsof cloth, 

 plastered over with a mixture of tar and cart-grease 

 and tied round the trunks of the trees in April and May, 

 will catch the female as she is going up to lay her eggs. 



The Nut WeevU (Balcminus nucmm) is a very small, 

 brownish beetle, easily recognised by its long and 

 slender beak. The female pierces the soffc young nut- 

 shell by means of this beak, and lays an egg in the 

 hole ; this hatches into a small, fat, white grub with a 

 much wrinkled skin, which feeds on the kernel. The 

 nut usually falls to the ground early, and the grub, 

 when full-fed, gnaws a hole through the shell, buries 

 itself in the ground, and turns to a whitish-coloured 

 pupa. Nuts falling before their proper time should be 

 collected and burnt before the grub has escaped. The 

 beetle is to be seen about the nut bushes in the beginning 

 of the summer. The pupa may be killed by stirring 

 the surface soil under the trees, which exposes some of 

 them to the weather and buries others too deep for them 

 to be able to get up to the surface again. 



The Shot-borer (Xyleborus dispa/r) is a small beetle, 

 one-eighth of an inch long, of a pitchy-brown colour, 

 with a cylindrical body and a very large thorax, which 

 has done much injury to fruit trees on the Continent 

 and in America by boring its tunnels into the stems so 



