240. Cut Worm and Moth.
241. Garden Weevil.
The White-pine weevil flies about in warm days. We have found its burrows winding irregularly over the inner surface of the bark and leading into the sap-wood. Each cell, in which it hibernates, in the middle of March, contains the yellowish white footless grub. Early in April it changes to a pupa, and a month after the beetle appears, and in a few days deposits its egg under the bark of old pine trees. It also oviposits in the terminal shoots of pine saplings, dwarfing and permanently deforming the tree. Associated with this weevil we have found the smaller, rounder, more cylindrical, whitish grubs of the Hylurgus terebrans, which mines the inner layers of the bark, slightly grooving the sap-wood. Later in April it pupates, and its habits accord in general with those of Pissodes strobi. Another Pine weevil also abounds at this time, as well as Otiorhynchus picipes (Fig. 241), which injures beans, etc.
Cylindrical bark-borers, which are little, round, weevil-like beetles, are now flying about fruit trees, to lay their eggs in the bark. Associated with the Pissodes, we may find in April the galleries of Tomicus pini, branching out from a common centre. They are filled up with fine sawdust, and, according to Dr. Fitch, are notched in the sides "in which the eggs have been placed, where they would remain undisturbed by the beetle as it crawled backwards and forth through the gallery." These little beetles have not the long snouts of the weevils, hence they cannot bore through the outer bark, but enter into the burrows made the preceding year, and distribute the eggs along the sides (Fitch). Another Tomicus, more dangerous than the preceding, feeds exclusively in the sap-wood, running solitary galleries for a distance of two inches towards the centre of the tree. We figure Tomicus xylographus Say (Fig. 242, enlarged). It is the most formidable enemy to the white pine in the North, and the yellow pine in the South that we have. It also flies in May. Ptinus fur (Fig. 243, much enlarged) is now found in out-houses, and is destructive to cloth, furs, etc., resembling the Larder-beetle (Dermestes) in its habits. It is fourteen hundredths of an inch in length.
242. Pine Weevil.
243. Ptinus and Larva.