76 
COLEOfTERA. 
wardness or backwardness of vegetation in the spring, and 
have frequently caught them flying in the middle of the day. 
They begin to sting the plums as soon as the fruit is set, 
and continue their operations to the middle of July, or, as 
some say, till the first of August. In doing this, the beetle 
first makes a small crescent-shaped incision, with its snout, 
in the skin of the plum, and then, turning round, inserts 
an egg in the wound. From one plum it goes to another, 
until its store of eggs is exhausted ; so that, where these 
beetles abound, not a plum will escape being stung. Very 
rarely is there more than one incision made in the same 
fruit ; and the weevil lays only a single egg therein. The 
insect hatched from this egg is a little whitish grub, desti- 
tute of feet, and very much like a maggot in appearance, 
except that it has a distinct, rounded, light-brown head. It 
immediately burrows obliquely into the fruit, and finally pene- 
trates to the stone. The irritation, arising from the wounds 
and from the gnawings of the grubs, causes the young fruit 
to become gummy, diseased, and finally to drop before it 
is ripe. Meanwhile, the grub comes to its growth, and, im- 
mediately after the falling of the fruit, quits the latter and 
burrows in the ground. This may occur at various times 
between the middle of June and of August ; and, in about 
three weeks afterwards, the insect completes its transforma- 
tions, and comes out of the ground in the beetle form. 
The earliest account of the habits of the plum weevil, that 
I have seen, was written by Dr. James Tilton, of Wilming- 
ton, Delaware. It will be found, under the article Fruit, in 
Dr. James Mease’s edition of Willich’s “ Domestic Encyclo- 
pedia,” published at Philadelphia in 1803. The same ac- 
count has been reprinted in the “ Gcorgic Papers for 1809 ” 
of the Massachusetts Agricultural Society, and in other 
works. According to Dr. Tilton, this insect attacks not only 
nectarines, plums, apricots, and cherries, hut also peaches, 
apples, pears, and quinces, the truth of which has been abun- 
dantly confirmed by later writers. I have myself ascertained 
