210 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
July 
about 40°. The extent of country then which they 
damage must be very great; probably it embraces Vir¬ 
ginia., Kentucky, and Tennessee, the south portions of 
Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and perhaps parts of North 
Carolina, Missouri and Arkansas. 
As to the amount of cold which the larva can endure, 
I will give the following fact. Last W'inter, finding 
some sheaves of wheat, which had accidentally been 
thrown at the bottom of my barley stack, I threw them 
on the barn floor for examination. They remained 
there several nights, during one of which the thermo¬ 
meter fell to 0° Fah. On examination, I found some of 
the larva still alive. But among those heads which I 
reserved for hatching out, I can now discover few if 
any larva but what look dark and shrivelled; and con¬ 
sequently, I suppose, are mostly dead. Whether this 
arose from the cold continuing too long for them I shall 
not decide; but I think it highly probable, that we shall 
not be troubled much with them, this season. Should 
they make their appearance, I will keep a sharp look¬ 
out, and may perhaps report progress. 
III. When is the insect found in its various stages ? 
The egg, or cluster of eggs on the wheat, seems to 
be deposited on the standing grain by the moth, late in 
May or early in June, in lat. 38°. As some proof of 
this, we know that weevils were found early in May, 
1845, in the mills here, hatched out of grain in bulk, of 
1844. This shows that they were parent moths, ready 
about that time, to deposit their eggs. My wheat 
which proved infested by weevil, we commenced cra¬ 
dling when somewhat green, on the 14th of June, and 
in about 14 days afterwards, most of it was closely 
stowed away in my barn, the heads all inwards, as in 
stacking, so that It seemed impossible for a moth to 
penetrate. There seems every probability from these 
and other facts, to be enumerated hereafter, that the 
eggs were deposited previous to this time, and not in 
the stack or barn, although I regret that my want of 
sufficient knowledge then of the habits of the insect, 
prevented me from detecting the moth, (as I think I 
might have done, very late in the evening or during 
the night,) busy at the work of destruction, among the 
standing grain. 
Some of the later hatched individuals of this gene¬ 
ration must be in existence a month or six weeks 
later than the above. This is proved by my finding 
some early corn, which, if I estimate correctly, was fit 
for their work about the middle of last July,) much 
Weevil eaten, while my late corn escaped almost unin- 
}«Sed. 
The early corn was from New-Jersey seed, and was 
planted, I see, by reference to my farming journal, on 
the 14th of April, and some of it was ripe enough on 
the 1st of August to be again sowed broadcast, and 
made excellent fodder; consequently it was probably in 
roasting ears about the middle or latter part of July; 
but of this unfortunately I made no memorandum. Per¬ 
haps, in our latitude, finding all the wheat harvested, 
and stacked too closely for them to penetrate to the 
errs, they commenced on corn, possibly in its milky 
state. One fact, however, seems to indicate that they 
wait till a later period, when the husk is already dry 
enough to open somewhat. It is at all events an addi¬ 
tional argument for supposing that they prefer easily 
accessible situations, such as standing grain for de¬ 
position of their eggs. I invariably found that all 
ears of weevil eaten corn (maize) had most grains per¬ 
forated near the top of the ear, where the husk is usually 
somewhat open, while the but-end generaly escapes; 
and again, ears of corn which have the husk very tight 
and close at top, scarcely suffer, while those ears which 
when harvested, showed their husks well opened, are 
sure to be found the most weevil eaten. 
On wheat, since I knew the exact spot to examine, 
I have usually been able to find the eggs, as I before 
remarked; but on corn, they have so far eluded my 
search. Last year, when harvesting some corn late in 
October, I found the moth sometimes wedged in be¬ 
tween two grains, generally head downwards, some¬ 
times flattened between the husks, with occasionally 
a hole perforated through several folds of husks, 
corresponding with the orifice of an empty grain. 
These moths, I may here remark, as well as the myri¬ 
ads hatched from the new wheat early in the month of 
August, constitute the second brood or summer genera¬ 
tion. As proof that the above is about the period to 
look out for them, I will state that in 18441 commenced 
threshing the product of forty acres on the 2d day of 
September. The wheat was all weevil-eaten, and being 
unfit for bread, w’as sold to a distillery. In 1845, hav¬ 
ing a Smaller crop and knowing more about the moth, 
I watched it narrowly, and deeming it safest, commenced 
on the 1st of August to thresh; on the 11th I had some 
of the wheat ground, and it made good flour; on the 
29th of the same month, I took the last to mill; this 
proved slightly weevil eaten. Those of my neighbors 
who did not have their wheat ground until some weeks 
later, could not use their flour. Thus the hatching 
process and growth of the larvae seems with us to take 
place early in August. 
IV. What is the nature of the injury done by the 
insect ? 
The perfect insect probably does no harm; but lives like 
other depidoptera, on the nectareous juices of flowers. 
The mischief is done by the larva or grub, which de¬ 
prives the grain of most of its farina. 
The cluster of eggs is found, as already remarked, on 
the external skin or bran of the grain, protected by the 
plume or husk. Thus those eggs on wheat, which had 
been threshed out, (being chiefly rubbed ofl) evaded my 
search; but as soon as I carefully drew back the husk 
in ears of unthreshed grain, I could generally find them. 
The channel formed by the larva may be traced even 
at the earliest periods of its attack, by using the point 
of a pen-knife, and will be found almost invariably as 
formerly described, to commence in the soft part of the 
grain, at or near the upper margin of the heart, the in¬ 
sect devouring a portion of the grain which may be 
compared to the albumen or white in the egg, but gene¬ 
rally leaving uninjured the vitellus or yolk, which en¬ 
velopes and nourishes the plume. [This accounts lor 
weevil eaten grain growing; although for want of 
nourishment it generally makes a weakly plant. I am 
aware that Duhamel and others have stated, in speaking 
of the Angoumois moth, that the grain will not grow; 
but I will state why I think it correct. I have myself 
sowed wheat which seemed perforated in nearly every 
grain, at the rate of two bushels to the acre; and had 
about as thick a set as I usually have from one. bushel 
and a half of good wheat. I do not say my experiment is 
conclusive; but neither can I without farther experimen¬ 
tal testimony, believe that there were sufficient of sound 
grains in mine to make such a set. Many of my neigh¬ 
bors haye experienced the same result in sowing their 
wheat; as we could with difficulty obtain any seed not 
weevil-eaten.] 
The larva continues to eat out the farina from the 
above mentioned entrance, through to the apex and in¬ 
creases in size during probably some two or three 
weeks. If the weather or other circumstances are un¬ 
favorable to development, I think some of the larva 
of this second brood do not undergo, or at least, 
complete their metamorphoses until the following 
spring; but, if the weather is warm, they will fairly 
swarm, contrary to Duhamel s account. In fact, this 
constitutes the main crop, if I may use the term. The 
old grain gave birth as we have seen, probably in May, 
to such as had escaped the rigors of the winter, (and 
furnishing enough at all events to impregnate the stand¬ 
ing grain;) the new wheat then gave birth early in Au¬ 
gust to the large swarms; and as these are but short¬ 
lived it must be individuals only of this generation that 
have been casually retarded, which live in the egg, 
grub, or chrysalis form until the year following. 
How long the summer brood remains in the chrysalis 
state I am not certain, but believe about two or three 
weeks. 
Now if during the early stages, after the hatching of 
the worm, the wheat be ground into flour, we of course 
grind up many larva, and have a clammy heavy flour; 
while later, even if the perfect insect has left the 
grain, the external covering of the cnrysalis and the 
