THE CURCULIO, OR PLUM-WEEVIL. 
75 
Others appear in September and October, and must pass the 
winter concealed in some secure place. From its size and 
resemblance to the nut-weevil of Europe, this is supposed 
to be the species which attacks the hazelnut here. 
It is now well known that the falling of unripe plums j$ 
caused by little whitish grubs, which bore into the fruit. 
Ihe loss occasioned by insects of this kind is frequently 
very great ; and in some of our gardens and orchards the 
crop of plums is often entirely ruined by the depredations 
of the grubs, which have been ascertained to be the larvae or 
young of a small beetle of the weevil 
tribe, called Rkynehcenus ( Conotrache - 
lus) Nenuphar ,* (Figs. 39 and 40,) the 
Nenuphar or plum-weevil. Tlus wee- 
vil, or curculio, as it is often called, is 
a little rough, dark-brown, or blackish 
beetle, looking like a dried bud when it 
is shaken from the trees, which resem- 
blance is met eased by its habit of drawing up its lees and 
bending its snout close to the lower side of its body, and 
remaining for a time without motion, and seemingly lifeless. 
It is fi oiu three twentieths to one fifth of an inch long, ex- 
clusiv e of the curved snout, which is rather longer than the 
thorax, and is bent under the breast, between the fore legs, 
when at rest. Its color is a dark brown, variegated with 
spots of white, ochre-yellow, and black. The thorax is un- 
even ; the wing-covers have several short ridges upon them, 
those on the middle of the back forming two considerable 
humps, of a black color, behind which there is a wide band 
of ochre-yellow and white. Each of the thighs has two 
little teeth on the under-side. I have found these beetles as 
early as the 30th of March, and as late as the 10th of June, 
and at various intermediate times, according with the for- 
* First described by Herbst, in 1797, under the name of Curculio Nenuphar ; 
1' abricius redescribed it under that of Ithymhanw Argula ; and Dejean lias named 
it Conotrachelus variegatus. 
