THE WHITE-PINE WEEVIL. 735 
But such a number of young weevils are usually placed in the affected 
shoots that inauy of them are cramped and discommoded for want of 
room. The worm on approaching the pith often finds there is another 
worm there, occupying the very spot to which he wished to penetrate. 
He thereupon, to avoid intrusion upon his neighbor, turns downward, 
and completes his burrow in the wood outside of the pith. Those, also, 
which enter the pith, are often unable to extend their galleries so far as 
is their custom without running into those of others. When its onward 
course is thus arrested, the worm feeds upon the walls of its burrow 
until it obtains the amount of nutriment it requires and is grown to its 
full size." 
The eggs of this species are probably similar in shape, but consider- 
ably larger than those deposited by the timber beetles, whose eggs and 
larval development are figured and described in the third report of 
the United States Entomological Commission (p. 280, Plate xxn, figs. 
1, 8, 9, 10. See also p. 722.) According to Ratzeburg, the European P. 
notatus lays its eggs in the lower internodes of young plants, boring 
into the sap-wood with its beak. Its habits thus differ much from our 
species, and it does not seem to affect the terminal shoot. The grub or 
larva does not differ from those of other borers found in the pine, as 
there is a great persistence of form in boring grubs, both of the weevil 
family and the bark-borers or Scolytids. The grub of Pissodes strobi 
(Plate xxii, fig. 5) is rather slenderer than those of Hylurgus, Dendroc- 
tonus, or Hylurgops pinifex. Compared with the latter very common 
borer the body is 8 mm in length, while that of H, pinifex is only 5 to 6 mm 
in length. 
While from their similar tunnel-making habits the larvae of the two 
families mentioned are, owing to adaptation to their surroundings, very 
similar, the pupae are very unlike, those of the white-pine weevil being 
at a glance distinguishable by their long snout, which is folded on the 
breast, and the beetle, as seen in the figure, has a long, slender snout, 
while the body is reddish brown, with two irregular white spots, one 
behind the middle of each wing-cover. When engaged in laying their 
eggs at the reddish-brown extremity of a pine twig, near the buds, 
these weevils are undoubtedly protected by their shape and color from 
the observation of birds, some kinds of which are constantly on the 
search for such beetles. 
While living in their " mines" or tunnels, the grubs are exposed to 
manifold dangers from carnivorous grubs, particularly the young of 
beetles of the family Tenebrionidce, etc. We have not detected any Ich- 
neumon or Chalcid larvee or flies in their burrows, but these are not 
uncommon in those of the Scolytid bark-borers. At all events these 
insect enemies keep the larval pine weevils within due limits, otherwise, 
their injurious effects in forests would be more marked. 
The presence of the grub of the white-pine weevil in a branch or 
twig or under the bark of a young or old tree, maybe at once known by 
its peculiar cells. When the grub is full-fed and ready to change to the 
