ACTING STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
75 
from all these holes, for whatever purpose they have been bored, there exudes a copious 
supply of gum, as is also the case with the crescent-slit of the Plum Curculio. 
As I have already shown in the Practical Entomologist , the newly-hatched larva of the 
Plum Gouger, instead of burrowing, like that of the Curculio, solely in the flesh of 
the plum, makes almost a straight course for the kernel, through the shell of which, 
being as yet soft, a passage is readily opened by it. Here it remains, feeding exclusive¬ 
ly upon the kernel, till it has acquired its full larval growth, when it cuts the same 
smooth, round hole through the now quite hard shell of the plum-stone that almost all 
boring-lame make, in order to afford a ready exit for the perfect insect. It then 
changes into the pupa state inside the plum-stone ; the plum itself not dropping m a 
green state from the tree, as is almost invariably the case with plums stung by the 
Curculio, but hanging on the tree and ripening prematurely. Subsequently, the pupa 
develops into the perfect Plum Gouger, and the latter emerges through the hole already 
prepared for it by the provident care of the larva. 
■ I suspect that I have rather over-estimated the destructive powers of the Gouger, as 
compared with those of the Curculio. The punctures, indeed, of the former are enor¬ 
mously abundant, out-numbering, certainly, fourfold the crescent-slits and the gougmg- 
work of the latter ; but only a very small percentage of these seem to contain eggs. 
No doubt such punctures greatly injure and disfigure the fruit, and the gum that exudes 
from them exhausts, to no purpose, the vital energies of the tree. Still, a plum that 
is simply punctured, without any egg being deposited in it, is not totally destroyed ; 
for the wound is but temporary, and nature can generally repair the damage. But 
whenever an egg is inserted in the wounded part, then, unless that egg fails to hatch 
out, or the young larva dies of disease, the unhappy plum is doomed ; for soon the 
resistless energies of the larva are, day after day, eating into its vitals. It is immaterial 
whether the larva, after hatching out, burrows exclusively in the flesh of the plum, as 
in the case of the Curculio ; or whether, passing through the flesh as rapidly as possible, 
it strikes a bee-line for the kernel, as in the case of the Gouger. In either case, the 
fate of that plum is premature death ; the only difference being, that the plum stung by 
the Curculio perishes in its infancy, while that which is stung by the Gouger attains a 
sickly and stunted manhood before it finally perishes. 
In illustration of the wide difference between the respective habits of the Curculio 
and the Gouger, I will give a few statistics : 1st. On June 24th I placed 165 wild plums, 
all of them more or less copiously punctured by the Gouger, and none of them, so far 
as I could perceive, with any crescent-slits, in a similar glass vase to those already 
described in preceding experiments. (Above, pages 67-8.) From this vase, winch was 
treated in the same manner as the others, I expected to have bred several Gougers. I 
did not breed a solitary one ; and all the insects that I obtained from this whole lot of 
plums, were two Curculios that came out, respectively, July 30th' and August 1st. 
Neither, on examining the sand at the bottom of the vase on November 29th, could I 
discover the remains of either larva, pupa or perfect insect, that had perished there 
prematurely. As two veritable Plum Curculios were bred from this lot of 165 plums, 
I presume that there must have been at least two cresccnt-slits on them, which I 
inadvertently overlooked. 2d. From the vase of wild plums, gathered July 27th, the 
details of which have been already given, (above, p. 68 ), I bred, as I showed before, no 
less than 51 Curculios; and yet, from this same lot—which, be it remembered, was 
gathered off the tree promiscuously and without any selection — I obtained only two 
Gougers, which came out, respectively, August 24th and 26tli. The reason of all this 
