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AN ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY. 



Chestnut-weevil, Balmiimis rectus. — a, from 

 above ; b, in outline, from side ; c, larva. 



shell through which it makes its way and goes underground to 

 pupate. Thus it winters, and the beetles emerge in spring when 



the nut-trees are in bloom. 

 Considerable injury is 

 sometimes caused in cul- 

 tivated chestnut groves, 

 and the only way to avoid 

 it is to gather the nuts 

 systematically as soon as 

 they fall, and either ship 

 them at once, or store 

 them in tight boxes or 

 barrels, from which the 

 larvae cannot escape when 

 they come out. They will then be found at the bottom when 

 the nuts are removed, and may be easily killed. 



In many localities corn is attacked soon after it shows above 

 ground by insects known as " corn bill-bugs." These belong to 

 the genus Sphenophoriis, and are black or brown, rarely gray in 

 color, varying from one-fourth to half an inch in length, with 

 very thick and hard wing-covers, which are ridged and punc- 

 tured, as is also the thorax. They hide during the day in the 

 soil at the base of the corn-plants, and kill them by boring 

 little round holes in the stem. They are most frequent after 

 timothy, especially on old sod, or when corn follows sedges or 

 bulb-rooted grasses. It is in such places that the larvae live 

 naturally, pupating in fall or early spring, and the beetles, finding 

 on spring-ploughed land that their natural food is gone, attack the 

 corn, which replaces and is nearly enough like it to be to their 

 taste. The period of injury is usually short, and by delaying 

 replanting a little, the new shoots escape attack. Fall ploughing 

 old timothy sod or sedge-land is always indicated, and will gen- 

 erally serve to reduce, if it does not entirely prevent, injury. 



To this same series belong the largest of our weevils, the Rhyn- 

 chophorus palmarum, or " palm-weevil," which often exceeds an 

 inch in length and whose fat, white larva, boring in palm, is said 

 to be quite a delicacy to the taste of the aborigines of Central 

 and South America. 



Much resembling it in shape but hardly exceeding one-eighth 



