1922.] 



The Apple Blossom Weevil. 



641 



left behind on the bark; these should be either crushed or 

 brushed off into the bucket. 



j^i,f.ying,— This is a practice in favour with some growers who 

 claim to have had good results by its employment. It is based 

 on the fact that the weevil when in the tree will fold its limbs 

 in close to the body and fall at the least shake or iar. Obser- 

 vations show that in spring at the first feeding period and 

 until about half-way through the oviposition period the weevil 

 is very responsive to jarring on bright warm windless days, 

 but on cold days or windy days it will secrete itself between the 

 cluster of young flowers and the leaves and no amount of 

 jarring will induce it to fall; moreover, from about the middle 

 of the egg-laying period the females are so busy egg-laying or 

 resting that they will cling to the buds in spite of violent 

 jarring. 



One feature of jarring od ideal days is that the sun renders 

 the weevils very active, so much so that they readily take 

 wing, and numbers, having been jarred off and finding them- 

 selves falling, spread their wrings and fly back into the 

 branches. 



Where a plantation lends itself to jarring, padded mallets or 

 other strikers should be used and, to catch the weevils, a wide 

 tarred sheet with a cut giving access to a circular opening in 

 the centre for the reception of the trunk. 



Spraying. — Spray treatment, as advocated from time to time, 

 aims at : — (1) poisoning, (2) killing by contact, or (3) having 

 some mechanical action. 



The fact that, in the spring feed, in boring the holes for 

 egg-laying, and in feeding on the under surfaces of the leaves, 

 the surface tissue, i.e., the tissue that would be coated with. 

 any adherent poison, is rejected at once shows that little good 

 can be expected from poisons such as lead arsenate; it is not 

 surprising, therefore, that trials at Long Ashton yielded very 

 unsatisfactory results. Nicotine has often been suggested as 

 a spray but has only an anaesthetising action, the w^eevils quite 

 recovering shortly after treatment. 



Several caustic soda sprays and other winter washes were 

 quite unsuccessful in laboratory trials conducted by the writer : 

 w^here lime-wash was used, in an attempt at sealing the weevils 

 up in their winter quarters, though made and applied under 

 ideal conditions, it proved most unsatisfactory, the weevils 

 coming out to feed quite covered with the lime wash. 



E 



