54 



of course immovable, except along with the head, of which it is in fact part and parcel. 

 The antenna? are elbowed, i.e., bent at right angles, and are set on the sides of the beak. 

 The plum curculio, or " Little Turk," as our American cousins have named it, in allusion 

 to the crescent-shaped wounds it inflicts on the fruit, is a little rough grey or blackish 

 beetle, about one-fifth of an inch in length ; it may easily b9 distinguished by its having 

 on the middle of each wing-case, a black shining hump, immediately behind which is a 

 broad band of yellowish white ; the snout is rather short, and when the insect is alarmed, 

 it is drawn up close to the under side of its body, and in this attitude, with its legs also 

 drawn up in a similar manner, it bears a strong resemblance to a dried bud, or piece of 

 dirt, or bark, and is very apt to deceive the uninitiated, more especially as it will remain 

 for a long time motionless and seemingly devoid of life, though if the observer has but 

 the requisite patience, and the day be sufficiently warm, he will see the apparently shapeless 

 little lump gradually put forth a leg here and a feeler there, and finally being convinced 

 of security, expand its wings and fly away in search of other objects of attack, Dr. 

 Harris records having frequently caught them flying in the middle of the day. The 

 curculio generally attacks the plum as soon as the fruit is fairly set, although while the 

 tree is yet in blossom they may often be discovered by the jarring process. C. V. Riley, 

 the State Entomologist of Missouri, thus descdbes the manner of laying the egg : — " The 

 process occupies about five minutes. Having taken a strong hold on the fruit (see Fig. 

 53 d), the female makes a minute cut with the jaws, which are at the end of her snout, 

 just through the skin of the fruit, and then runs the snout under the skin to the depth 

 of one-sixteenth of an inch, and moves it back and forth, until the cavity is large enough 

 to receive the egg it is to retain ; she next changes her position, and drops an egg into 

 the mouth of the cut, then, veering round again, she pushes it by means of her snout to the 

 end of the passage, and afterwards cuts the crescent in front of the hole, so as to under- 

 mine the egg and leave it in a sort of flap ; her object apparently being to deaden this 

 flap so as to prevent the growing fruit from crushing the egg, though Dr. Hull informs 

 me that he has repeatedly removed the insect as soon as the egg was deposited, and before 

 the flap was made, and the egg hatched and the young penetrated the fruit in every in- 

 stance." 



The egg, being deposited, is in a few days hatched into a small, white, footless grub, 

 which increases rapidly in size, eating its way almost to the centre of the fruit. After the 

 lapse of several weeks, and before the grub is fully grown, the plum drops to the ground, 

 its natural growth being stopped by the workings of the grub, which in a short time, 

 Laving reached its maturity, eats its way to the surface and penetrating the earth a little 

 distance, makes a small cavity for itself, and there changes into a chrysalis or pupa. In 

 this inactive state, it generally remains for some three or four weeks, when it finally 

 appears as the perfect beetle, and continues in that state until the succeeding spring, when 

 it proceeds to attack the plum after the manner of its forefathers. In some cases, how- 

 ever, owing perhaps to various causes of place and temperature, some few individuals 

 may pass the entire winter in the pupa state, and not complete their transformation until 

 the following spring, but the better opinion seems now to be, that such i3 not the normal 

 custom of the insect. As many of our readers may be unacquainted with the appearance 

 of the different stages of this insect, we have prepared at Fig, 53, correct and magnified 

 portraits of the full grown larva (a), of the chrysalis, or pupa (b), into which the larva 

 is transformed, of the perfect curculio (c) and of the cre3cent-shaped mark it causes (d). 

 Dr. James Tilton, of Wilmington, Delaware, was one of the earliest observers of the plum 

 weevil. In an article published by him in 1803, he states that this insect attacks not 

 only nectarines, plums, apricots and cherries, but also peaches, apples, pears and quinces, 

 and later writers have fully confirmed this statement. In 1831, Mr. Thomas Say, the 

 chief authority on American entomology, in a note on the plum weevil, stated, "that it 

 depredates on the plum and peach, and other stone fruit," and that his " kinsman, the late 

 excellent William Bartram, informed him it also destroys the English walnut in this coun- 

 try." Dr. Harris, the late State Entomologist of Massachusetts, ascertained that the 

 cherry worm, so called, produced at maturity the same curculio as that of the plum ; 

 though, unlike the latter, it rarely causes the stung cherry to drop prematurely to the 

 ground ; and the late Dr. Joel Burnett, the author of several articles on the plum weevil, 



