﻿190 BRITISH BEETLES. 



near Hammersmith) living in the stems of Scirpus, of 

 ■which it devours the pith. 



Those of another species {E. vorax, common in the 

 perfect state on poplars, upon which it may be detected 

 lurking in chinks of the hark, and remarkable for the 

 great length of the front legs in the male) have been 

 found in the pods of laburnum, feeding on the seeds ; 

 and the larva of a third {E. tceniatus) lives in the catkins 

 of the sallow, which it mines for their entire length, and 

 forms a cocoon for itself with the silky fibres peculiar 

 to the seeds of that tree. 



The species of Anthonomus, in which the rostrum is 

 slender and usually long, and the prosternum very short, 

 are small, moderately convex, and sometimes adorned 

 with short variegated pubescence of a pinkish-grey tone 

 relieved by a darker band. Some of them are well 

 known to commit great havoc upon apples and pears, 

 the female insect boring a hole with her slender rostrum 

 into the young buds, and then depositing an e^^ into 

 it, the larva proceeding from which subsists upon the 

 young blossom (and occasionally the fruit), and forms a 

 kind of cocoon with the petals, wherein it undergoes 

 its changes. Other species infest the elm, bramble, etc. 

 in like manner. 



In the genus Balaninus the rostrum is very long, 

 slender, and arched, sometimes nearly as long as the 

 body, and the prosternum considerably elongate be- 

 tween the front coxae. To it belongs the ''nut- weevil " 

 before mentioned, the larva of which is so well known. 

 The female deposits a single e^^ into the nut when the 

 latter is very young, and has been stated to use her 

 long beak as a drill in that operation. The larva, which 

 leaves the vital part of the fruit until the last, when ar- 



