398 RAVAGES OF INSECTS. 



the branches of apple-trees, on which it lays its eggs b}' 

 perforating the bloom buds. In the spring these hatch, 

 and the grubs feed on the 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 clwysalide state ; 

 and in the autumn afterwards we find the weevil renev/ed, 

 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."* Salisbury's weevil is probably the Anthonomus 

 Pomorum of Germar; and Knight's, his Polydrusus Mali. 

 Another weevil (^Phynchites 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 sycophanta, Weber), 

 which is rare in Britain. It is sometimes found in the 

 nests of the processionary and other gregarious caterpillars, 

 so gorged with those it has devoured 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 

 wantonness, it should seem, when in no need of other food, 

 pierce and devour them."t It is a familiar occurrence to 

 those who breed insects to find caterpillars, whose natural 

 food is leaves, devouring others in the same nurse-box; 

 and without any apparent discrimination whether these 

 are the progeny of their own mother, or of a different 

 species. J (J.E.) 



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



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



X See also De Geer, vol. i. p. 533, &e., and Reaumur, vol. ii. p. 413. 



