Page:The Olive Its Culture in Theory and Practice.djvu/124

102 very close together. It is entirely black and sparsely sprinkled with whitish hair, and is about half an inch in length.

The third curculion, the Mecinus Circulatus has the antennæ inserted in the middle of the rostrum or proboscis. The antennæ is five-jointed, the first very long and conical, the others transversal and short, the club oval and nearly solid. Rostrum not very long, strong, slightly inclined, cylindrical and not dilated at the extremity. Body oblong, cylindrical and winged. Thorax cylindrical and much compressed in front. Shield triangular, paws or feet, hard and inserted very near together. The shield wing elongated and cylindrical. The tarsi spongy beneath the first two joints, triangular, penultimate expanded and the last one elongated and cylindrical.

This insect is a trifle more than one-twelfth of an inch in length. Chestnut colored with stripes of a lighter shade along the edges of the shield wings and about the head. The feet are dark, as are also the tarsi.

The three above described curculions in their last stage attack the buds of the tender branches, and gnaw the shoots at the forks, digging a nest in which they conceal themselves. Here the female deposits her eggs and the resulting larvæ imitate the habits of the Phlœtribus whose description follows.

The egg (Fig. 5) of this insect, is oblong in shape and of a yellowish white color, and a little over an hundredth of an inch in diameter.

The larva (Fig. 6, 7, 8,) at its greatest size is an eighth of an inch in length, is oblong and soft, with callous head; body composed of fourteen rings, one cephalic, three thoracic, and ten abdominal of a dirty white color, with reddish jaws; the palpi, short and small, the antennæ just visible, with a considerable enlargement near the