1853.] Linnean Society, 265 



December 20. 



Thomas Bell, Esq., President, in the Chair. 

 John Dickinson, Esq., F.R.S., was elected a Fellow. 



Read, a " Notice regarding a "Weevil of the Vine and its Parasite." 

 By John Curtis, Esq., F.L.S. &c. 



Numerous insects have long since been noticed as injurious to 

 vines in the South of Europe, and their history and oeconomy have 

 been ably discussed by Baron Walckenaer and M. Audouin. Among 

 the Beetles is a weevil, named by Fabricius Attelabus Betuleti (Rhyn- 

 chites of Schonherr and other authors), which occasionally produces 

 very extensive mischief to the vines of Burgundy, while in England 

 its attacks are limited to the birch. During a residence at Genoa 

 in June last, Mr. Curtis was obligingly taken to the Botanic Garden 

 by M. Mussino to see alive the Chrysomela Americana, L., which 

 inhabits a species of lavender, and his attention was called to the 

 vines against the walls, which were attacked by the mildew, so widely 

 spread during the past summer through Medoc and the wine-growing 

 districts of France and Italy, and especially in Tuscany and Piedmont. 

 While examining this mildew, he perceived many of the leaves of 

 the vine rolled up like cigars ; but the elaborate memoir of M. Debey 

 on Attelabus Betulce, L., renders it unnecessary to enter into detail 

 on the wonderful mode in which these little animals generally cut 

 and roll the leaves with mathematical precision. It is necessary, 

 however, to state that the female weevil cuts the leaf through across 

 the diameter, without dividing the midrib, then deposits an egg or 

 two upon the upper surface, and subsequently rolls up the lower 

 portion, leaving the upper part untouched, so that it remains green, 

 and the leaf does not fall off for a considerable period, often probably 

 until the tree sheds its leaves. In her mode of manipulation, how- 

 ever, the Attelabus Betuleti seems to differ from the A. Betulce and 

 most other weevils, inasmuch as the author observed, on cutting 

 transversely, that the entire leaf appeared to be rolled up, from the 

 base to the tip. 



Mr. Curtis's principal object, however, in bringing the sub- 

 ject before the Society, was to call attention to a memoir by 

 Prof. Filippi of Turin, published in the ' Nuovi Annali delle Scienze 

 Naturali di Bologna' for January and February 1852, entitled " Storia 

 Genetica di un Insetto Parasito delle Uova del Rhynchites Betuleti," 



