August, ’23] 
chapman: calendra and macaroni 
345 
process of milling semolina in these experiments, although the wheat 
was heavily infested. 
Oviposition in Semolina 
Many descriptions of the food of the adult weevils include flour as a 
food substance without distinguishing between substances in which 
they may sustain life for a certain period and those in which they may 
live, reproduce and otherwise function in a normal way. Consequently 
it was necessary to determine whether these weevils might oviposit in 
the absence of a material too small in size for the construction of the 
ordinary egg cavity. Three samples of No. 1 and No. 2 semolina were 
placed in jars and infested with 100 weevils, in each case. The samples 
were then examined every other day for a month, but there was no 
evidence of any eggs having been laid and the adults died without 
leaving progeny. Other weevils taken from the same culture were 
placed in wheat during this same period of time and they oviposited 
normally the eggs hatched and the larvae came to maturity. Another 
15 pound sample of No. 1 semolina was infested and left to be made into 
macaroni as will be described later. 
In order to determine whether larvae might develop in small granules 
in case eggs did pass thru the mill or the adults did at times oviposit in 
granules, particles of wheat were chipped out by hand in such a way that 
eggs were left in small granules. In these cases the larvae soon broke 
out of the granules when the inside of them had been consumed. These 
larvae died due to the fact that they have no legs and were not fitted for 
life outside of a hard substance. This confirms Cotton’s 2 statement 
that the larvae are restricted to seeds or other foods which contain 
sufficient food to enable them to develop to maturity. Cases have 
been observed in which the adult weevils have oviposited in very thin 
ribbon like noodles. In such cases the adults are apparently deceived 
by the third dimension of the material. In these cases the larvae either 
develop into very small adults in case the noodles are thick enough to 
permit it, or they break out of the material and perish. In such thin 
material the larval cavity takes on the character of an elongated mine 
rather than the more or less spherical shape characteristically found in 
wheat and other grains. This is doubtless due to their reaction when 
they approach the surface of the material within which they are con¬ 
fined. 
This leads to the conclusion that adult beetles could not be induced 
2 Cotton, R. T. 1920. Page 410. 
