ACTING STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
69 
» 
According to Dr. Fitch, who lives about 110 miles further north than I do—where, 
consequently, as also in the two cases just quoted, the seasons would be a little later 
than with me — most of the Curculios that breed in the plum “ leave the fruit and 
enter the ground in the early part of July, some not leaving for probably two or three 
weeks afterwards.” “They remain,” he continues, “in the ground about three 
weeks. Hence, it is during the latter part of July that the most of them come out in 
the perfect state.” (Ibid., p. 20.) This last writer was evidently not aware, that 
Curculios may be bred both from Plum and from Black-knot to as late a period as the 
latter end of September ; and hence, believing that the species must necessarily be 
double-brooded, he mistook for young Curculio-larvse certain minute bodies, that he 
found in the autumn embedded in a slit in a pear-twig. But these were very probably, 
I think, not larvae at all, but the eggs of some small Leaf-hopper ( Tettigonia family,) 
and perhaps those of my Culprit Leaf-hopper (Ohloroneura malefica, Walsh), which agree 
precisely with his description, and which I have described as common both on apple- 
twigs and pear-twigs.* Be this as it may, with no further proof than a general resem¬ 
blance between the crescent-slit made in plums by the Curculio, and the slit containing 
minute elongate bodies which he once found in a pear-twig, and without any attempt 
to breed the perfect insect from these minute bodies, Dr. Fitch has jumped to the 
astounding conclusion, that the Curculio passes the winter in the larva state inside the 
twigs of trees! t 
Making due allowance for the difference of latitude, it is plain that, in the above- 
quoted three cases, where Curculios were bred by three different individuals, in New 
England, in Canada West, and in New York respectively, all that were bred coincided in 
the time of their appearance with the first brood that I bred at Rock Island, 
between the 19th of July and the 4th of August, 1867. I myself in 1865 bred seven 
Curculios from Black-knot, as I have recorded in the Practical Entomologist (Yol. I. p. 50,) 
the first of which came out July 22d and the last September 24th; but unfortunately 
I have since destroyed the record of the dates at which the remaining five made 
their appearance, with the exception of an entry on my Journal, that the second speci¬ 
men of the seven came out as late as August 81st, and must therefore, as well as the 
four following specimens, have belonged to the second brood. 
The practical inference to be drawn from the above discovery is this : — I said in my 
Paper on Curculios that, “ by destroying the wormy fruit you do not diminish the crop 
of Curculios for the current year, but only that for the ensuing year.” This was stated 
on the hypothesis of the species being single-brooded. Now that we know that it is 
double-brooded, it must be evident that, by destroying in June and early in July, 
before the larvae have left the fruit and gone underground, the wormy fruit that pro¬ 
duces the first brood of beetles, you prevent that first brood of beetles from puncturing 
the fruit so as to generate the second brood, and consequently you do “ diminish the 
crop of Curculios for the current year.” 
It is a mistake to suppose that no plum contains more than one Curculio egg. I 
counted no less than five plums, that had fallen off my tame Plum-tree, every one of 
which bore on its surface five Curculio crescents ; and in a wild Plum I once (July 28th) 
counted as many as nine. It must not be imagined, either, that the Curculio ever cuts 
* See my Articles Prairie Farmer, Sept. 6,1862, and April 4,1863, p. 212, in which last there is given 
a figure of an apple-twig containing these egg-slits. 
f See Address on Curculio , pp. 23-4, and N. Y. Rep., II., g 52. 
