53 



it undergoes the necessary transformations, and emerges the following spring as the perfect 

 beetle. For a month or two after the eggs are deposited, the growth of the shoot is 

 unaffected, but as the grubs increase in size, and reach the centre, it begins to wilt and 

 shortly dies and withers. One of the lateral or side shoots, curves upward frequently, 

 and takes the place of the destroyed leader, but a crook is thus caused which greatly 

 lessens the value of the tree. The only way to prevent their ravages, is by cutting off 

 all the dead shoots, while the insects are still in them, and burning them. When these 

 beetles are very numerous they also attack the side shoots. 



There are other species of this genus, very similar in appearance to P. strobi, which 

 are found assisting it in its ravages, and which are sometimes abundant. 



Another weevil found upon pines, from the middle of May to the middle of June is 

 Polydrosus elegans, which, as its name denotes, is a very graceful and beautiful beetle. It 

 differs from the preceding species in shape, its body being narrow and more cylindrical, 

 while the head is not prolonged into a slender snout, but is lengthened only slightly, and 

 flattened, the mouth being wide, and having inserted near its sides the antennae. The 

 colour varies from a silvery gray to a creamy buff, and I have several specimens, usually 

 males, of a most delicate glistening green. Their colouring is caused, not as in preceding 

 species, by a covering of short hairs, but by a coating of minute iridescent scales, resem- 

 bling in shape grains of rice. When denuded of these fragile scales, which are easily 

 rubbed off, the beetle is jet black. 



The numbers of the genus Anthonomus are, as indicated by the name, "flower-dwellers," 

 and are found upon trees or plants when in blossom, and as the fruit is setting. Several 

 species occur in Canada, one of which, A. quadrigibbus (see fig 31), is a small, rough, 

 robust beetle of a reddish brown, with a slender beak almost as long as its body. It is 

 often abundant upon the hawthorn, and when disturbed folds its legs, tucks carefully 

 away its antennae, and looking for all the world like a withered bud, drops to the ground. 

 This habit of simulating death and of taking on the appearance of a dried bud, seed, or 

 bit of moss or dirt, is common to many weevils. The little beetle in question is sometimes 

 called the apple weevil, because it punctures that fruit at times, with from one to twenty 

 holes. 



An allied species, A. suturalis, the cranberry weevil, is a minute reddish weevil, 

 which in the United States attacks the cranberry vines, and, as it is found in Canada, may 

 probably do so here also, although I have seen no record of its operations. The female 

 is said to bore a hole in a bud, and after depositing an egg therein, cut it off, so that it falls 

 upon the ground and decays, while the grub grows> and transforms within it. 



Conotrachehis nenupJiar, the plum weevil, is too well known (especially after the full 

 account of it by Mr. Gott,in last year's Report), to require more than a brief mention here. 

 In tig. 36 we have this insect shown in its several stages of larva, chrysalis and beetle. 



From its extended ravages, and the crescent- shaped mark 

 which it makes when depositing its egg in the young plum, 

 it has been, not inappropriately, named the " little Turk." 

 The grub, when hatched, eats towards the germ of the fruit, 

 which then dies and falls prematurely to the earth, where 

 it is kept moist while the worm attains its full growth. 

 When arrived at maturity, the grub leaves its wasted 

 larder, to pupate in the earth, from which it emerges the 

 following spring, as a small, rough, dark, mottled beetle. 

 Jarring the trees once or twice daily, during the season 

 when the beetles are depositing their eggs (that is when 

 the plums have reached the size of peas), and thus causing 

 36> them to fall down upon sheets spread beneath the trees, is 



apparently the best method of exterminating this pest, which is spreading rapidly through- 

 out the country, and destroying great quantities of fruit. Various other plans are 

 however advocated, for the best of which I will refer you to Mr. Gott's report. 



The plum weevil when abundant also attacks other fruit ; including apples, pears, 

 peaches, apricots, nectarines and quinces in its list of dainties. It causes some to fall 

 prematurely, and mutilates and scars many others, so as to render them unfit for market. 



