84 NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 



The Snout-Beetles. (Curculiones.) 



Occupy the lowest rank among Coleopterous Insects, 

 partly on account of their head, which is prolongated 

 into a bill-like pointed snout, with a very small 

 mouth at the end and two triangular antennae, and 

 partly on account of their larvae, which are maggots, 

 like those of flies, having no legs. The female of 

 these Insects bores holes, with her pointed mouth, 

 in the vegetable body in which she deposits her 

 eggs, and the maggots issuing from them enter the 

 stems of annual and perennial plants, devouring all 

 their internal substance, and destroying whole plan- 

 tations and forests. The ravages occasioned by these 

 maggots are seen on our fruit-trees, apples, pears, 

 plums, chestnuts, hazelnuts, and in the rice, peas, 

 wheat and other grains. 



The Palni- Weevil. (Calandra Palmarum.) 



Plate III. Fig. 15. 



Is one of the largest Snout-beetles of North 

 America, but it is found mostly in the tropics. I 

 found it in St. Domingo, and have given an illus- 

 tration, or rather representation, of it in the third 

 Plate of this work, because it gives an excellent 

 idea of the form and appearance of all the other 

 genera and species of Curculiones. 



