244 INSECT TRANSFOIIMATIONS. 



petals of the flowers, drawing up the whole flower 

 into a cluster by means of their web. The bloom 

 thus becomes destroyed, and the grub falls to the 

 ground, where it lays itself up in the chrysalide state ; 

 and in the autumn afterwards we find the weevil re- 

 newed, which again perforates the buds, and causes 

 a similar destruction in the following spring. Mr. 

 Knight, in his treatise on the apple, mentions a beetle 

 which commits great destruction on the apple-trees 

 in Herefordshire ; but I do not think it the same as 

 the one I have described above, and which is very 

 common in the gardens near London."* Sahsbury's 

 weevil is probably the Anthonomus Ponwritm of Ger- 

 mar; and Knight's his Polydrusus Mali. Another 

 weevil {Rhynchiies Bacchus, Herbst), one of our 

 most splendid but not very common native insects, 

 bores into the stone of the cherry, &c., while it is 

 young and soft, and deposits an egg there, as the nut- 

 weevil does in the nut. 



Perhaps the most voracious grub on record is that 

 of a large and beautiful beetle (Calosoma sycophania^ 

 Weber), which is rare in Britain. It is sometimes 

 found in the nests of the processionary and other gre- 

 garious caterpillars, so gorged with those it has de- 

 voured that it can scarcely move without bursting. 

 Not contented with this prey alone, however, the 

 younger grubs are said " often to take advantage of 

 the helpless inactivity into which the gluttony of 

 their maturer comrades has thrown them, and from 

 mere wauLonness, it should seem, when in no need of 

 other food, pierce and devour them."t It is a fami- 

 liar occurrence to those who breed insects to find 

 caterpillars, whose natural food is leaves, devouring 

 others in the same nurse-box ; and without any ap- 



* Salisbury's Hints on Orchards, p. 92. 

 f Kirby and Spence, vol. i. p. 277. 



