Coleopterous Insects. 257 



addition to the number of misnamed weevils) often swarmed 

 in the ship biscuit. Gyllenhall, Fabricius, &€., followed by 

 our recent English entomologists, consider, however, the 

 Z)ermestes paniceus to be an Anobium ; and the observations • 

 of Mr. Stephens upon the habits of the Anobium paniceum 

 seem to prove the correctness of such opinion. This author, 

 in his invaluable descriptions of British insects, states that its 

 larva " feeds upon farinaceous substances, and is particularly 

 attached to old bread and wafers, the latter of which it fastens 

 together in masses of three or four, within which it undergoes 

 its metamorphosis, the insect appearing in plenty in June : it 

 will also attack neglected collections of insects." (Illustr, 

 Coleoptera, vol. iii. p. 34^1.) This, however, is the only species 

 of Anobium which is recorded as being attached to such sub- 

 stances. — J,0. Westwood. Marchi 1833. 



On April 16. 1833, I obtained (at my father's), from among 

 peas and beans, a larva, on which Mr. Westwood, on my send- 

 ing it to him, favoured me with the following remarks, on 



May 22. In addition to what I have stated respecting the 

 various insects which attack grain and pulse, and which thence 

 appear to have received, in common, the name of weevils or 

 wules, or mules, it may be stated of the dried peas or beans of 

 which you have recently forwarded me a small boxful, that 

 they were infested by a small grub which eats through and 

 attaches together, by silken ties, several of them, filling up the 

 interstices of the web with its own excrement, so as to form a 

 gallery, from which it occasionally protrudes its head, some- 

 what like the grubs of the caddis flies (Phryganeae). It is 

 evidently the larva of the little moth. Tinea granella, which 

 appears to have occasioned much alarm on the Continent. 

 This, therefore, is another insect to which the name of wule 

 would, in common parlance, be applicable. 



The seeds of other leguminous plants, or, as they are com- 

 monly termed, pulse, are subject, in different parts of the world, 

 to the attacks of other insect depredators, especially the vari- 

 ous species of ^ruchus, numerous instances of which are re- 

 corded by Messrs. Kirby and Spence, vol. i. p. 1 78. 3d edit, 

 [p. 175. of the 4th edit.]. Another instance has recently 

 occurred of the depredation committed by another species of 

 this genus. Dr. Hamilton of Plymouth having recently 

 transmitted to Mr. Loudon seeds of the Caesalpin/« Cbriaria, 

 or dividivi, " the legumes of which are so valuable as a substi- 

 tute both for oak bark and galls, some of the seeds contained 

 the insect caught ^^o^r«w/^ delicto'' [in the very act of eating 

 them]. These seeds are about a quarter of an inch in length, 

 and of an oval flattened form, like small beans ; and in the in- 



Vol. VII. — No. 39. s 



