28 



the plum, and oftentimes to do a considerable amount of damage. But there is another 

 curculio, the " four-humped," or apple curculio, which bids fair to become a nuisance in 

 our gardens and orchards. Though well known for some time to entomologists in the 

 western part of this Province, it has only recently been much observed or regarded as 

 destructive. Its natural food is the wild crab and the hawthorn ; but now it is taking 

 kindly to the cultivated varieties of the apple. In the September, 1870, number of the 

 Canada Farmer (p. 337), we have recorded its occurrence at Milbrook, Ont., where " it 

 had done a good deal of damage by eating a considerable portion of the surface of several 

 apples." 



This species may be easily distinguished from the plum curculio by its much longer 

 and more slender snout ; its color, which is dull brown, shading into rusty red behind ;. 

 and by the four conspicuous humps on the wing covers behind the middle, which are 

 brownish-red, and not shining black, as in the case of the plum curculio. The accompany- 

 ing illustration gives an excellent representation 

 of the perfect insect, (Fig. 33, a, natural size ; b, 

 side view ; c, back view of the beetle.) Unlike 

 the insect affecting the plum, this creature makes 

 round instead of crescent- shaped holes, most of 

 them, apparently, for tKe purpose of eating, as but 

 a small proportion of them have been observed to 

 contain eggs or larva?. It Varies also in complet- 

 ing its transformations, as a rule, in the fruit 

 instead of the ground. 



The only known remedy for its attacks is vig- 

 orous and continued "jarring," a full account of 

 which operation will be found under the description of the plum curculio in a subsequent 

 part of this Keport, and therefore need not be repeated here. 



Fig. 33. 



