OF THE FARM AND GAEDBK. 



187 



crescent is evidently to deaden the flap, so as to prevent 

 the growing fruit from crushing tlae egg. 



Now that she has completed this task, and has gone 

 ofE to perform a similar operation on some other fruit, 

 let us from day to day watch the egg which we have just 

 seen deposited, and learn in what manner it develoiJS 

 into a Curculio like the parent which produced it — ■ 

 remembering that the life and habits of this . one indi- 

 vidual are illustrative of those of every other Plum 

 Cucurlio. 



We shall find that the egg is oval and of a pearly-white 

 color. Should the weather be warm and genial, this egg 

 will hatch in from four 

 to five days, but if cold 

 and unpleasant the 

 hatching will not take 

 place for a week or even 

 longer. Eventually, 



however, there hatches 

 from the egg a soft, 

 tiny, footless grub with 

 a horny head, and this 

 grub immediately com- 

 mences to feed upon the 

 green flesh of the fruit, 

 boring a tortuous path 

 as it proceeds. It riots 

 in the fruit — working 

 by preference around 

 the stone — for from three to five weeks, the period 

 varying, according to various controlling influences. 



The fruit containing this grub does not, in the major- 

 ity of instances, mature, but falls prematurely to the 

 ground, generally before the grub is quite full grown. 

 I have known fruit to lie on the ground for upwards of 

 two weeks before the grub left, and have found as many 



Fig. 117.— THB PLUM OUBCIILIO. 

 The insect and its work, greatly enlarged. 



