Turnip-Seed Weevil
(Ceuthorhynchus assimilis). A small Weevil, closely related to, and very much like, the gall-makers of the same genus (C. sulcicollis), known as Cabbage Gall or Turnip Gall Weevils (which see). It differs from the latter in the grey colour due to the pale hairs or scales scattered all over its dark body, and in the hinder thighs not being toothed on the inner side; and it is also slightly smaller. Its life-history is as follows: The Beetles usually emerge from the pupae in autumn; they pass the winter in shelter, and may be found, in spring and early summer, on flowers of Cabbages, Turnips, and other cultivated or wild Cruciferoe, feeding upon the flowers. The females lay their eggs in the immature fruits; and the larvae feed on the seeds, and, when full-fed, bore out of the seed-vessels, fall to the ground and burrow into it, there to become pupae.
Remedies must be confined to the capture of the Beetles, by nets or otherwise, on the flowers, since the habits of the larvae, and the situation of the pupae, almost preclude other means of capturing them freely.