RAVAGES OF GRUBS. 233 



beetles and weevils. Amon^ the first, the gnawing 

 beetles {BruchidcK, Leach) are very destructive. 

 In North America, the pea beetle {Briichus Pisi, 

 Linn.) commits such extensive depredations on 

 pulse, that in some districts the sowing of peas has 

 been abandoned as useless. Kalm, the Swedish 

 traveller, having witnessed these depredations in 

 America, became quite alarmed when he discovered 

 the insect among some peas he had brought to 

 Sweden, lest he should be the means of introducing 

 so formidable a pest.*' His fears seem to us to have 

 been in a great measure groundless ; for, probably, 

 the insect may be indigenous to Sweden, as it is to 

 Britain, though from circumstances of climate, and 

 other causes, it is seldom produced in such numbers 

 with us as to occasion extensive damage. It may have 

 been the same or an allied species of grub mentioned 

 by Amoroux as having spread an alarm in France in 

 1780, when the old fancy of its being poisonous 

 induced the public authorities to prohibit peas from 

 being sold in the markets. | The insect most 

 destructive to our peas is the pulse beetle {Bruchus 

 granariiiSy Linn.), which sometimes lays an egg on 

 every pea in a pod, which the grub, when hatched, 

 destroys. In the same way, clover seed is often attacked 

 by two or more species of small weevil {Jipio^i, 

 Herbst), known by the yellow colour of their 

 thighs or their ^eei\ and when the farmer expects to 

 reap considerable profit, he finds nothing but empty 

 husks. 



We have mentioned the ravages committed in 

 granaries by the caterpillars of small moths ; but 

 these are rivalled in the work of destruction by 

 several species of grubs. One of these grubs is 



* Kalm's Travels, vol. i, p. 173. 



t Amoroux, Insectes Venimeux, 288. Kirby and Spence, 

 i, 177. 



VOL. VI. 20* 



