Coleopterous Insects, 9,55 



obvious Noise, and in thejblloixing Man7ier. — Upon my pierc- 

 ing a specimen of this insect, through the elytron with a pin, 

 I was surprised to hear it emit a very curious noise, of which 

 I will endeavour to convey an idea; for although I observe 

 that this fact has been noticed in another quarter, yet the de- 

 scription there given is, in my opinion, too vague to allow a 

 reader to form any notion of it. The noise is more like bark- 

 ing than any other noise to which I can compare it ; the voice, 

 if I may be allowed that term, being acute and distinct, yet 

 not audible at a great distance. It is not heard except when 

 the insect moves its head and thorax up and down, and it ap- 

 pears to be caused by the latter rubbing against the juncture 

 which exists between that part and the elytra and abdomen. 

 If the insect be held by the body, or the finger be pressed 

 upon its elytra, so as to detain it underneath, the noise is im- 

 mediately produced in its endeavours to release itself. Whe- 

 ther it produces this noise when at liberty, I know not, having 

 never seen but this one specimen. I may remark that it is a 

 considerable time in dying upon the pin ; my specimen, although 

 impaled and exposed to strong spirits of ammonia, survived 

 this treatment four days. — James FennelL Paddington, ^^g' 

 1833. 



[Three individuals of C. yirietis have been known to oc- 

 cupy three years in attaining maturity : this after they had in 

 one of their earlier stages, probably in that of the egg state, 

 been subjected to the action of a very high temperature. See 

 the Entomological Magazine, vol. ii. p. 114.] 



Notes on some Species of Insects isohich consume Pulse, Grain, 

 Biscuits, S^c, — I remember that the beans, and, I believe, 

 other corn, of the Cambridgeshire farmers, when thrashed, 

 dressed, and laid by, used to be, in the days of my boyhood 

 (and, doubtless, is still), infested with a small insect, which my 

 fellow boys used to call a mule or *wule. Perhaps this is but a 

 corruption of the word weevil ; but, if my recollection is accu- 

 rate, the insect itself, which was very common, and very abun- 

 dant, was one of the Ptinidae, not of the Curculionidse. — J.D» 



In relation to this remark, which was written anterior to 

 Christmas time, 1832, I then sought for specimens of the 

 expected ptinideous insects among some few old peas and old 

 beans, which had lain by for two years or so at my father's 

 (Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire); and, although some of the 

 peas were strung together, and some of the beans also, by the 

 matted webs and excrement of insects that had gnawed them, 

 I could then find but very few larvae, and only one perfect and 

 live insect, an elegant curculionideous one, whose presence 

 there, my prejudice inclined me to suppose, might be accidental. 



