G3 



removed and fresh soil put in its place. There are several instances on record of 

 rose-growers having given up the cultivation of this queen of all flowers, on 

 account of the attacks of this insect ; but this is not necessary, if they will learn 

 something of its life-history and applj- remedies accordingly. Prof. Riley has 

 worked out the life-history and finds that the eggs are laid in flattened batches of 

 from 10 to 60, the individual eggs being smooth yellow and ovoid and about one 

 millimetre in length. They are laid by the female at the base of the plant just 

 above the ground, and are generally pushed between the loose bark and the stem^ 

 or are laid between the earth and the main stem, just at the surface of the ground. 

 They are so firmly glued together and to the place where they are deposited that 

 they can only be detached with difficulty. After about a month the eggs hatch 

 and the active little larvse at once burrow down into the ground and begin their 

 work of destruction. When full grown they turn to pupse, Fig. 27, from which 

 the mature beetles emerge in about three weeks. The perfect 

 beetle, Fig. 28, is a brown weevil, a little more than I of an inch in 

 length, with a short thick snout and long slender antennae or feelers, 

 bent abruptly in the middle. The wing-cases are indistinctly striate, 

 and bear rows of large punctures and minute hairs. A whitish Fig. 27. 

 stripe runs along the sides of the thorax and half way down the sides where 

 it terminates as an oblique white dash, reaching to the middle of each wing-case. 

 Prof. Riley says : " The parent beetles, like most other snout beetles, live for a 

 considerable time, as I have kept them in confinement for 

 nearly three months. They are nocturnal in habit, being quite 

 active and feeding only after dusk. They shun the light daring 

 day-time and hide under the leaves or cling tightly to the 

 Fig. 28. branches or in some fork near the base of the plant, always in 

 such position as not easily to be observed. They drop to the ground when 

 disturbed, draw up their legs and * play possum,' remaining motionless for some 

 time and looking very much like a small lump of dry earth, the colour adding 

 greatly to the resemblance. This habit of simulating death upon disturbance is 

 common to many other insects of this family. They feed upon the leaves, but do 

 more injury by severing them than by the amount of foliage consumed." 



" The beetle seems to be purely American, and the genus Aramigus was in fact 

 erected for it and another species (A. tesselatus), of about the same size, but of a 

 silvery white colour, with faint green hue, which I have found in Kansas upon 

 the well-known 'resin weed.' The beetle belongs to the same family, and is 

 pretty closely allied to a well-known European beetle, Otiorhynclms sulcatus, 

 Fab., which is larger and darker in colour, and is also very injurious to green- 

 house plants, as well as to some grown out of doors. This species also occurs in 

 this countr}^" The last-named beetle has been taken by Mr. Harrington at 

 Sydney, Cape Breton, but has never yet been reported as an injurious insect in 

 Canada. 



Remedies. — Probably the most satisfactory remedies for this pest are those 

 v/hich are directed towards the destruction of the mature beetles. As stated 

 above these are very retentive of life. They can, however, certainly be con- 

 quered by constant watchfulness and by keeping the plants in the house where 

 they occur frequently sprayed all the time the perfect beetles occur with weak 

 arsenical mixtures. Paris green of the strength of 1 lb. to 300 gallons of water 

 is strong enough to destroy the beetles and will not injure the plants if kept well 

 mixed all the time it is being used. Mr. Alderman Scrim, of Ottawa, an exten- 

 sive grower of roses and other plants for winter cut-flowers was very successful 

 in trapping the beetles by means of the small bamboo canes commonly used by 

 florists for supporting potted plants in greenhouses. These were cut so that there 



