78 
COLEOPTERA.- 
far as he had observed,) that go into the earth as late as the 
20th of July, do not ascend that season, but remain there m 
the pupa stage until next spring.” Dr. Tilton, in liis account 
of the curculio, stated that “ it remains in the earth, in the 
form of a grub, during the winter, ready to be metamorphosed 
into a beetle as the spring advances.” According to M. H. 
Simpson, Esq., of Saxonville, the larvae, or gnibs, “ go through 
their chrysalis state in three weeks after going into the ground, 
and remain in a torpid state through the season, unless the 
earth is disturbed.” * Dr. E. Sanborn, of Andover, has come 
to entirely different conclusions, from a series of experiments 
made upon these insects. It is his opinion that they do not 
remain in the gi’ound, during the winter, either in the grub 
or in the beetle state ; but that, under all conditions of place 
and temperature, “ in about six Aveeks ” after they haA^e en¬ 
tered the earth “ they return to the surface perfectly finished, 
AA’inged, and equipped for the Avork of destruction”; and that, 
“ as neither the curculio nor its gnib burro avs in the ground 
during the AAunter, the common practice of guarding agamst 
its raA^ages, by A^anous operations in the soil, rests upon a 
false theory, and is productive of no A’aluable results. ”f If 
these conclusions be correct, these insects must pass the AAun- 
ter aboA'e ground, in the beetle state, and the place of their 
concealment, during this season, remains to be discovered. 
In July, 1818, Professor W. D. Peck obtained, from the 
AA'arty excrescences of the cherry-tree, the same insects that 
he “ had long knoAvn to occasion the fall of peaches, apricots, 
and plums, before they had acquired half their groAvth”; 
and, not aAA^are that this species had already received a scien¬ 
tific name, he called it Rhynchcenus Cerasi^ the cheriw-AveeAll. 
His account of it, with a figure, may be seen in the fifth 
A^olume of the “ Massachusetts Agricultural Repository and 
* Hovey’s Magazine, Vol. XVL p. 257, June, 1850. 
t See Dr. Sanborn’s interesting communications on the Plum Curculio, in the 
Boston Cultivator, for May 19, 1849, and July 13, 1850, and in the Puritan Re¬ 
corder for May 2, and the Cambridge Chronicle for May 30, 1850. 
