SNOUT-BEETLES AND HOW THEY INJUEE NUTS 
45 
serious damage is done by the snout-beetles. There are many different 
species of these beetles that attack the common nuts of our forests, each 
species feeding on its preferred nut. It is the larvae that do the great 
damage to nuts. Some feed on the husks and inner tissues of young 
nuts, and others feed on the kernels of nuts that are ripe. Walnuts and 
hickory-nuts are frequently attacked soon after the blossoms fall from 
the trees, and the injured nuts fall to the ground! before they are half 
grown. Other varieties, including chestnuts and acorns, sustain the 
greatest injury as they approach maturity. 
The name “ snout-beetle ’ ’ is given to this group of beetles because 
of the peculiar construction of the head, the front part of which is pro¬ 
longed into a snout or proboscis. The mouth, with its tiny but strong 
pair of jaws, is located on the tip of the long slender snout. The head 
is rounded behind, and as one writer says, “fits into a cavity in the 
front of the thorax forming a union like a ball and socket joint. The 
construction of this joint permits the head to revolve for more than a 
fourth of its circumference. In piercing a nut the beetle presses the 
point of the beak against the surface and by rotating the head drills a 
tiny opening to the desired depth, sometimes even piercing the horny 
shell of mature hickory-nuts that are a tenth of an inch in thickness and 
as hard as bone. After the opening has been made ready, the beetle 
thrusts forth the long ovipositor and places an egg at the bottom of the 
gallery. Some species make only one hole in a nut, while others make 
a branched gallery and insert several eggs through the one small open, 
ing in the hull. ,, 
The egg soon hatches, and by the time the nut ripens and drops, 
the grub, in a number of species, is full-grown and ready to eat a, hole 
in the shell and emerge. Then it works its way into the ground for an 
inch or more, where it formis a small cell in which it spends the winter 
unchanged. In June, July, or August the larvae change to pupae. After 
remaining in the pupal stage for about two weeks, they transform to 
adult beetles and after a few days emerge from the ground and go to 
the trees. 
This is a very general description of the life cycle of these beetles; 
there are exceptions and variations in many species. 
The grubs that come out of chestnuts about the time they are 
gathered belong to the group known as the larger chestnut-weevils, 
which lay their eggs early in the season; those that come out long after 
