STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 93 



habits of half a million species, he has but to acquaint himself with the 

 appearance and characteristics of one hundred families; and if the rudi- 

 ments of Entomology had been taught you, gentlemen, at school, so 

 that you had become familiar with these hundred family types, you 

 would now be much better able to cope with your insect enemies. When 

 I think tliat it would take a child no longer to learn these one hundred 

 family types thair it does to learn the one hundred different types which 

 compose the four alphabets — the Roman capital and small alphabet and 

 the writing capital and small alphabet — 1 fully expect, and sincerelv 

 hope, that in the public schools of this country we shall soon have text 

 books introduced which will cover the ground as well, and occupy the 

 same jolace as do those useful works of Leunis, and Troschel & Rutiie, 

 in the public schools of Germany. 



With these few remarks, which are intended to show that the prac- 

 tical man may easily obtain a general knowledge of his insect friends 

 and enemies, notwithstanding the wide field of their operations and the 

 immense number of species which exist, we will now dwell for a while 

 on one of these families, which deeply interest you as fruit growers, 

 namely : 



THE CURCULIONID^ OR SNOUT-BEETLES. 



This is one of the very largest and most conspicuous Families in the 

 order of Beetles (Coleoptera^ comprising, as it does, over 10,000 distinct 

 and described species. It is at once distinguished from all the other 

 families of beetles by the front of the head being produced into a more 

 or less elongated snout or rostrum, at the extremity of which the mouth 

 is situated. The snout is sometimes very long and as fine as a hair 

 (genus Balaninus) and sometimes as broad as the head (genus Brent/ms ;) 

 but it always forms part and parcel of the head and does not articulate 

 on it as does the snout or proboscis of the true Bugs {Hejnipiera,) or 

 the tongue of Moths and Butterflies. The other chief characteristics of 

 the Family are an apparently four-jointed tarsus or foot (though in reality 

 there are more generally five joints,) an ovoid form narrowing in front, 

 the sides pressed by the convex elytra or wing-covers, the antennas or 

 feelers attached to the snout, and either elbowed or straight and com- 

 posed of nine, ten, eleven, or twelve joints — the first of which is always 

 long and the terminal thi'ee generally united in a club or knob; and 

 finally stout legs with swollen thighs, sometimes bearing spines. 



The larvae of these snout-beetles are whitish or yellowish and fleshy 

 grubs, always without legs or having only in the place of them fleshy 

 tubercles, which in a measure perform the functions of legs; the body is 

 oblong, with the back generally arched, but sometimes straight. With 

 these characteristics in your mind you can not fail to recognize a snout- 

 beetle when you see one. Now there is hardly one of the one hundred 

 families that I have referred to from which so many injurious species 

 can be enumerated, for with the exception of an European species 

 {^Anthribus varius) whose larva was found by Ratzebukg to destroy 

 bark-lice, they are all vegetarians, the larvai inhabiting either the roots, 



