OF THE FARM AisJJ GABDEif. 



19 



BEAN. 



THE AMERICAN BEAN-WEE\IL. 

 {Bruchus fabce, Riley.) 



This Weevil api3ears to be a native American insect 

 and doubtless fed originally on some kind of wild bean 

 (PJiaseoIus or Lathy r us), but it was first noticed in our 

 cultivated beans about the year 1861, in Khode Island, 

 and ha^ since, at diSerent times, suddenly made its 

 appearance in several other j^arts of the country. 



If, as has been supposed, it possibly occurs over large 

 tracts of our country, the faot that, until a few years ago, 

 it had never been collected by any American eutomolo- 

 gist, would strongly intimate that, in what may be 

 termed its wild state, it was quite rare and had a limited 

 rano^e. But even if it should occur in this wild state 

 more generally through the country than the facts would 

 lead us to believe, there is nevertheless more danger of 

 its being introduced into a bean field hitherto exempt by 

 the planting of infested cultivated beans, than by its 

 spreading from the wild food. And if once a few bnggy 

 beans are i^lanted, they will in a short time infest the other 

 beans cultivated in the neighborhood, so that the man 

 who, year after year, gTows his own seed, will suffer as 

 much as the man who originally introduces the weevils 

 from afar. 



Except in being smaller, the larva and puj^a of this 

 weevil have a close resemblance to those of the Pea- 

 weevil, and its habits are very similar, with the excej^ 

 tion that the female deposits a greater number of eggs 

 on a single pod, so that sometimes over a dozen larvte 

 enter a single bean. As many as fourteen have been 

 counted in one bean, and the space required for each indi- 

 vidual to develop is not much more than sufficient to 



