THE CODLING-MOTH AND PLUM-CURCULIO 
33 
Upon entering the apples the larvae soon eat their way through 
to the seeds, a favorite place to them. And when you find them, they 
are about one half inch long, white in color, with black heads and eight 
pair of legs. 
Towards fall these larvae snugly ensconce themselves in tiny silken 
cocoons for the winter. Any time from October to May you can find 
them by scraping bark-scales! from the apple-trees. Look, too, for the 
scales that have been pecked into by the woodpeckers, for underneath 
you are sure to find an empty cocoon. If you find many that are not 
empty, that means you have not woodpeckers enough to destroy them. 
Knowing how these larvae damage the apple crops, and how useful 
birds are in destroying the pest, I am sure no* boy or girl will think of 
molesting Downy as, he hies over the trunks of the apple-trees. 
The plum-curculio appears about the time the leaf-buds are open¬ 
ing in the spring. Its body is short and thick, about one fourth inch 
long, and of a brownish color marked with gray and black. It may be 
•easily recognized by the elongated hump of what appears to be black 
sealing-wax on each wing cover. It feeds upon the leaves until the fruit 
is set. Then, with its long proboscis, or snout, it makes a small hole 
in the fruit and deposits a tiny, oval-shaped, white egg. Then, through 
wisdom bestowed by the Creator, it cuts a crescent-shaped segment in 
the flesh of the fruit, around the egg. This makes a dead spot and pre¬ 
vents the crushing of the egg, as the fruit at this point will not grow. 
In three to five days the egg hatches, and the larva, as you usually 
find it, is a footless white grub lying in a curved position. In this con¬ 
dition it stays from twelve to eighteen days; then it leaves the fruit and 
enters the ground, where it forms a cell a few inches beneath the sur¬ 
face. In this it changes to a delicate white pupa' about one fourth inch 
long and remains thus for about thirty days, when it comes to the sur¬ 
face an adult curculio. In this stage it' passes the winter under leaves, 
grass and trash of all descriptions in and near the orchard, ready for 
spring depredations. 
This little creature is indeed very destructive and equally hard to 
combat. It has a habit of “playing possum” when disturbed, and until 
recent years jarring the trees and collecting the insects on sheets spread 
beneath was the principal way of destroying it. Burning all trash, cul¬ 
tivating the ground, spraying with arsenicals, promptly gathering all 
infested fruit as soon as it falls to the ground, and allowing chickens to 
