THE PEA-WEEVIL. 
63 
grub then bores a round hole from the hollow in the centre 
of the pea quite to the hull, but leaves the latter, and gen- 
erally the germ of the future sprout, untouched. Hence 
these buggy peas, as they are called by seedsmen and gar- 
deners, will frequently sprout and grow when planted. The 
grub is changed to a pupa within its hole in the pea in the 
autumn, and before the spring casts its skin again, becomes 
a beetle, and gnaws a hole through the thin hull in order to 
make its escape into the air, which frequently does not hap- 
pen before the peas are planted for an early crop. After 
the pea-vines have flowered, and while the pods are young 
and tender, and the peas within them are just beginning to 
swell, the beetles gather upon them, and deposit their tiny 
eggs singly in the punctures or wounds which they make 
upon the surface of the pods. This is done mostly during 
the night, or in cloudy weather. The grubs, as soon as 
they are hatched, penetrate the pod and bury themselves 
in the opposite peas ; and the holes through which they 
pass into the seeds are so fine as hardly to be perceived, 
and are soon dosed. Sometimes every pea in a pod will 
be found to contain a weevil-grub; and so great has been 
the injury to the crop, in some parts of the country, that 
the inhabitants have been obliged to give up the cultivation 
of this vegetable.* These insects diminish the weight of the 
peas in which they lodge nearly one half, and their leavings 
are fit only for the food of swine. This occasions a great 
loss where peas arc raised for feeding stock or for family 
use, as they are in many places. Those persons who eat 
whole peas in the winter after they are raised, run the risk 
of eating the weevils also ; but if the peas are kept till they 
are a year old, the insects will entirely leave them.f 
The pea-weevil is supposed to be a native of the United 
States. It seems to have been first noticed in Pennsylvania, 
* Sec Kalm's Travels, (8vo, Warrington, 1770,) Vol. I. p. 173. 
t See the “ Boston Cultivator ” for July 1, 1848, for an interesting account of 
the habits of these insects, by Mr. S. Deane. 
