138 COLEOPTBRA OR BEETLES. 



do not fall until after the weevil has escaped, a small round hole 

 showing its place of exit (fig. 58, i). The female takes some 

 time to lay her eggs, each one requiring about three-quarters of an 

 hour to deposit. As they can only live in an unopened blossom, 

 the attack must necessarily be of short duration. The worst 

 mischief is wrought when we have cold nights and bad weather, 

 thus retarding the opening of the buds and giving a longer 

 period for oviposition. The whole life-cycle is complete in 

 about five weeks. There is apparently only one brood in the 

 year. The adult beetles coming from the diseased blossoms 

 feed upon the apple leafage until the time arrives to hibernate. 

 The males are endowed with considerable powers of flight, but 

 one never finds the females on the wing. The majority crawl 

 up the trees to lay. 



Prevention and Remedies. — The same rules for prevention of 

 this fruit pest apply to all alike — namely, the destruction of win- 

 ter shelter by keeping the tree trunks clean and free from rough 

 bark. Probably spraying with paraffin emulsion just before the 

 buds commence to burst would stop numbers from laying their 

 eggs, as they have to bore through the outer tissue with their 

 mouth before they do so. Spraying with arsenites seems to be 

 only partially successful. Trees which are seen to be badly 

 infested, where possible, should be well shaken, and the dead 

 blossoms collected and burnt before the beetles have escaped. 

 This last method could not fail to be of considerable bene- 

 fit in checking this pest in gardens. 



Pea and Bban Weevils (Sitones lineatus and S. cbinittjs). 



That sparrows do an immense amount of harm is only too 

 well known, but they are not accountable for the damage done to 

 young peas and beans that is usually attributed to them. When 

 the edges of the leaves of our peas are eaten- out in notches, it 

 is generally said to be due to this cosmopolitan bird ; but if we 

 caiefnUy and quietly watch a, i;ow showing these symptoms, we 



