2.6 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [Jan., '17 



feeds chiefly on such plants as Oncidium oblongatum, Lycaste, 

 Odontoglossum and various other species having large soft 

 pseudo-bulbs. The adult, which is about 17 mm. long and 7 

 mm. wide and characteristically marked, gnaws large irregular 

 depressions in the pseudo-bulbs and also feeds on the bases of 

 the leaves, usually cutting them off more or less completely. 

 (Plate IV, fig. 4.) Sometimes they feed rather openly on the 

 leaves, but as a rule they can be found lurking at the base of 

 the plant. The larva lives in the pseudo-bulb and excavates 

 quite a large cavity, destroying much of the interior and pav- 

 ing the way for decay. Pupation also takes place in the 

 pseudo-bulb. The body of the adult is quite hard, it being al- 

 most impossible to pierce it with an ordinary pin unless con- 

 siderable force is exerted. That they can endure long fasts 



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is evident from the treatment, which they sometimes receive 

 at the hands of unfeeling workmen in orchid houses, who tie 

 strings to their legs and hang them up for weeks at a time 

 finally taking them down and killing them in disgust because 

 they persist in remaining alive. 



Acypotheus (Baridius) orchivora Blackb. (Col.). (Plate V, fig. 3.) 

 It is not unusual to come across this representative of the 

 family Baridac and indications of its work in Dcndrobium or- 

 chids growing in various greenhouses in northern New Jersey. 

 It is a typical, little, dull black weevil about 3.5 mm. long, hav- 

 ing the snout and legs thickened, the thorax wider than long 

 and rounded on the sides to the hind margin. The elytron is 

 convex and broadly rounded to the apex. The head is finely 

 punctured, the thoracic dorsum more coarsely pitted and the 

 elytra marked with parallel punctured striae, the ventral sur- 

 face and legs also being finely pitted. It was described by the 

 Rev. T. Blackburn in the Transactions of the Royal Society 

 of South Australia, 1900. Mr. Walter W. Froggatt in Misc. 

 Pub. No. 751 from the Agricultural Gazette of N. S. Wales 

 gives a brief account of this species and figures an adult. He 

 states that the insects were bred from the pseudo-bulbs or 

 thickened leaf stalks of Dcndrobium canaliculatum and gives 

 the following descriptions of the larva and pupa. 



