PEA AND CLOVER WEEVILS. 1G5 



These beetles are often very injurious to the leafage of 

 Peas, as well as to that of other leguminous crops, as Beans, 

 Clover, &c. The attacked crops may be known by the leaves 

 being scooped out at the edge, as figured. The beetles begin 

 then- work at the edges of the leaves, and gradually eat their 

 way onwards, until, in bad attacks, nothing is left but the 

 central rib, or merely the leaf-stalk. 



Great numbers of the weevils appear in March and later on, 

 and dp great mischief, but up to the year 1882 the place of 

 deposit of the eggs, and the history of these weevils in their 

 early stages was still as completely unknown as when Curtis, 

 mhis 'Farm Insects,' mentioned of the aS'. lineatus thiii "it 

 still ^remained to be ascertained where the eggs are depos- 

 ited"; and of the S. crinitus (more in detail), "No one 

 knows where the female lays her eggs : no one knows where 

 the maggots feed, or where they change to pupro." 



In the course of the spring and summer of 1882, the long- 

 needed observations of where the maggots of these two kinds 

 of the destructive Sitones weevils feed and turn to chrysalis 

 state were made respectively by Mr. T. H. Hart, of Park 

 Farm, Kingsnorth, Kent ; and by Mr. Eeginald W. Christy, 

 of Boynton Hall, near Chelmsford, Essex. 



On the 31st of May Mr. Hart, in the course of special 

 examination of his Pea-roots, found many weevil maggots. 

 Some of these were lying along the main root, which bore 

 marks of channels having been eaten along it, but in many 

 cases they appeared to be feeding on the soft gall-growths 

 often to be found on Pea-roots. 



These maggots, of which specimens were sent mo, were, 

 when full-grown, about a quarter of an inch in length, white, 

 plump, and wrinkled, with a brownish horny head furnished 

 with strong jaws, legless, but using the end of the tail as a 

 kind of foot to help them in progression. When full-fed the 

 maggot fornied an oval cell (without a lining) in the earth, 

 about two inches below the surface, in which it changed 

 directly to the chrysalis state. In this state it is like the 

 perfect weevil, only with the limbs folded beneath it. At 

 first it is white, but as it matures the eyes become black and 

 proboscis pitchy. The weevils brought in from the field 

 reached the perfect state by the 6th of July; those left in 

 their natural position in the field did not mature until some- 

 what later. The Striped Pea Weevil, Situnes lineatus, is of 

 an ochreous or light clay-colour, with three whitish or 

 ochreous stripes along the back, and with ten punctured 

 stripes alternately of a darker and lighter clay-colour along the 

 wing-cases ; the horns and legs are reddish. The markings 

 of the beetles only show well on fresh specimens, as they are 



