ORDER I.——BEETLES. 59 
down to a meal without bowing profoundly to each other, 
and saying, “ I wish you a good appetite!” This friendly 
and polite salutation would be peculiarly apropos before so 
delicate a dish. 
The Cabbage Palm-tree has the same general appearance 
as the Cocoa-palm, but its fruits are not larger than peas. 
The inhabitants frequently cut down these trees, for the 
purpose of getting from its top the unexpanded terminal 
leaf-bud, which weighs many pounds, and is of a cylindric- 
alform. ‘This is called the Palm-cabbage, and is eaten in 
soups, or is boiled and prepared with vinegar and oil as a 
salad, and has really a delightful taste. Then they make 
incisions in the trunk, in order to entice the Snout Beetle 
there by the evaporation of the sap, and to have her depos- 
it her eggs in it, that they may afterward obtain a large 
crop of maggots. 
Another species of Snout Beetle is the WHEAT-WEEVIL 
(Calandra granaria), which is not larger than a flea, oblong, 
and chestnut-colored. These insects do immense injuries 
in granaries by boring a hole with their snout into the 
srains of wheat, or barley, or rye, and depositing therein 
an egs, from which proceeds a white maggot, which de- 
vours all the farinaceous substance, so that nothing remains 
but the hull. These maggots live in this condition about 
thirty days, when they metamorphose into white cocoons, 
from which, after about ten days, the perfect Insects pro- 
ceed, the females of which immediately deposit their eggs, 
each laying about one hundred and fifty. 
This Wheat-weevil is originally a native of Europe, and 
seems to have been accidentally imported here with grain. 
The RicE-wEEvIiL (Calandra Oryza) belongs to the same 
genus, and is found, as its name indicates, in rice, where it 
may be seen every day. It is of about the same size as the 
preceding, but differs from it by having two spots on each 
wing-cover. 
