76 
FIRST ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 
is pretty plain. A plum inhabited by the Gouger larva would naturally hang on the 
tree, so that the kernel would become fully developed ; and by plucking all these plums 
more or less prematurely from the tree, I caused the premature death of a great many 
Gouger larvoe. On the other hand, a plum inhabited by the Curculio larva naturally 
falls from the tree, and thus my arrangements, so far as regards this species, interfered 
in no wise with the laws of nature. 
The larva of the Plum Gouger, when found burrowing in the kernel on July 20th, by which time the 
shell of the kernel was quite hard, was 0.12 inch long when partially straightened out, and 0.10 inch 
long when curled up in the usual semicircular form. The color was milk-white, not whitish-glassy as in 
the Curculio larva, and there was no rust-red stomach as in the Curculio larva. The head was large, 
horny, and of a yellowish-wliite color, the jaws (mandibles) being tipped with brown. The plum in 
which this larva occurred had only been gathered four or five days previously. Another larva, that had 
already bored into the kernel and was met with July 28th, in a plum gathered the day before, differed 
only in the head not being tinged with yellow, and in the jaws being almost entirely brown. 
”V\ hether there be one or two broods of this insect every year, I cannot say with cer¬ 
tainty , but I strongly suspect that there is but one. The perfect beetles appear on the 
plums early in June and deposit their eggs therein, precisely as does the Curculio at 
that date, though, as has been shown, on an entirely different system. According to 
Mi. L. C. Francis, of Springfield, Central Illinois, (who is a very successful plum-grow¬ 
er and follows the plan of jarring his trees regularly during the summer,) after June 
7th, although he had previously found “ about equal numbers of the Gouger and 
Curculio,” the Gougers entirely disappeared, Curculios being still met with up to the 
last of July. ( Prairie Farmer, March 19, 1864.) This certainly seems to indicate, that 
there is no such early brood of Gougers coming out in July as there is of Curculios. 
From a large lot of plums that I gathered myself off the tree June 24th, and that must 
have contained many of the eggs of the Gouger — for I found several eggs in the few 
that I cut open—I failed, as already said, to breed a single Gouger; but I attribute this 
to the fact, that these plums would naturally have hung on the tree till the kernel 
wmuld have been more fully developed. On July 20th and 23th, as I stated just now, 
I found in plums but recently gathered larvae that could not have been much more than 
half-grown , so that the probability is, that the plum infested by this larva must natu¬ 
rally hang on the tree till the kernel is nearly perfected —that this larva requires a 
much longei time to mature than that of the Curculio — and that eggs deposited early 
in June do not develop into the beetle state till the end of August or perhaps the early 
Part of September. The two Gougers actually bred by me this year came out, as will 
be recollected, August 24th and 26tli. And there is nothing at all improbable or anoma¬ 
lous in a Snout-beetle, which comes out so late in the year, living all through the 
winter and until the following spring. At any rate, as all the other species of the 
genus ( Anthonomus), whose transformations are known to me, are only single-brooded, 
the presumption is that this species is the same; and if any one holds the contrary 
opinion, the burden of proof rests upon his shoulders. 
Whether the Plum Gouger is confined to the Valley of the Mississippi, or whether 
it occurs also in the Atlantic States, is not quite clear. None of my Eastern corres¬ 
pondents have met with it at the East, and neither Fitch nor Harris describe the species. 
Indeed, common as it is with us upon Plums, it was unknown to Science, until I 
described it in 1863 in the Prairie Farmer , with a brief account of its habits, which 
description was subsequently reproduced in the Proceedings of the Poston Society of 
Faturalllist or y. (IN., p. 309.) From some observations, however, let fall by Dr. Fitch, 
