STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 601 
Next, at what time do these beetles come abroad, and where do we find 
them ? I know not how many articles in our agricultural periodicals I can 
refer to, reciting the success of different remedies, which were applied, 
“ when the Curculio first began to appear ”—yet not one of them specifying 
the date, whereby others might know when the time has arrived to look 
for it. 
Undoubtedly to the south of us, in Pennsylvania and Maryland, this, 
like all other insects, will come abroad somewhat earlier than they do here 
in New-York. And everywhere, they will vary somewhat with the back¬ 
wardness or forwardness of the season, in different years. 
In my own vicinity, fifty miles north of Albany, this beetle has been 
found, as early as the beginning of April, though it is not usually met with 
till about the middle of May; and in a week or ten days afterwards it be¬ 
comes common. It is then found standing or slowly walking upon the 
trunk and limbs of the plum, cherry, apple, the wild thorn-apple, the but¬ 
ternut, and doubtless on some other trees—though I name no others, not 
being certain but it was accidentally present in other situations where I 
have captured it. The collector of insects will notice, that the specimens 
he finds on butternut trees are always larger in size than those he finds on 
cultivated fruit trees—indicating that they have been better fed during the 
larva or growing period of their lives. And from this time, onward, till 
cold weather returns, we continue to find these beetles abroad, the whole 
season through. Late in autumn, upon the flowers of the Golden rod, they 
may be met with as plenty as at any earlier period of the year. 
And next—what do these insects do? As we have just stated, they 
come abroad in full force, soon after the middle of May; and it is some 
two or three weeks after this, or about the tenth day of June, that the 
young fruit becomes sufficiently advanced to answer their purposes. They 
then fall upon it, to deposit their eggs therein. They are decided epicures, 
being most fond of the choicest varieties of our fruits ; hence the nectarines 
and all the best kinds of plums are most sure to be destroyed. But as 
already stated, their numbers are now so excessively multiplied, all over 
our country, that the plums fail to accommodate but a portion of them. 
Others, therefore, invade the peaches, pears, apples and cherries, and others 
still attack the wild thorn apples, making the same crescent-shaped wound 
in all these fruits. 
It is in allusion to this crescent-shaped mark that this weevil is frequently 
termed the Little Turk—as it appears to delight in seeing this symbol of 
Mahommetnnism everywhere inscribed—as though the little imp was aware 
how annoying the sight of it is to us “ Christian dogs.” 
This mark is scarcely the tenth of an inch in length, but is very distinctly 
to be seen wherever it occurs upon the surface of the young fruit, In 
apples, however, which are quite small and have a thin wooly coating and 
are increasing rapidly in size when they receive this wound, it in a few 
days becomes so dried and healed that it usually appears to. the eye as a 
mere discolored speck, which is probably the reason why it has been so 
