RAVAGES OF GRUBS. 233 



beetles and weevils. Among the first, the gnawing 

 beetles {Bruchidce, Leach) are very destructive. 

 In North America, the pea-beetle {Bruchus 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 Swe- 

 den, 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 men- 

 tioned 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. f The insect 

 most destructive to our peas is the pulse-beetle 

 (Bruchus granarius^ Ltnn.), 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 

 {Apion, Herbst), known by the yellow colour of 

 their thighs or their feet ; and when the farmer ex- 

 pects 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. 



f Amoroux, Insectes Veuimeux, 288. Kirbv and Spence, 

 i. 177. 



