BEETLES; IMPORTED IN SEED. Fi 
mens of a beetle which is now emerging from some foreign Beans he 
had lately bought”; also a request for information as to what they 
were, and whether they were in any way likely to be injurious, so 
that, if necessary, steps might be taken to destroy them. 
In this case, as the Beans had been purchased for feeding purposes, 
Mr. Wallace, on hearing about the nature of the infestation, had them 
ground at once.* 
On May 30th enquiry was also sent me as to Bruchus-infestation 
in imported Beans by Prof. John Golding, Lecturer on Chemistry at 
University College, Nottingham; these, he mentioned, were Italian- 
grown Seville Long-pod Beans, and he desired to know the name of 
the beetle, and whether it had been known to live in England, and 
infest the seed of an English-grown crop of Beans in the same way that 
the Pea and Bean Weevil does. 
In the above and other cases of home or imported infestation of 
Beans by Bruchi sent me for examination, I have never seen any 
reason to suppose that the injuries were caused by the B. faba, but 
either certainly or presumably by the B. rufimanus; and in the notes 
immediately following I give some detailed observations on the Bruchus 
fabe which might to some degree be described as the U.S.A. and §. 
African Bean-seed Weevil. 
The Bruchus fabe, Riley, the Bean-seed Beetle (at one time known 
as the Bruchus obsoletus, Say, and now as the Bruchus obtectus, Say),t 
was first recognized and described by Thomas Say from American 
specimens somewhere about the year 1832, and was for a long time 
considered to be a U.S.A. species; but it was not until the year 1860 
that it was recorded (by Dr. Fitch) as infesting cultivated Beans, and 
the attack rapidly spread, mainly, it is believed, by means of infested 
Beans. 
The following is the technical description by Say :—‘‘ Body 
blackish-cinereous, with a slight tinge of brown; antenne not deeply 
serrate; thorax much narrowed before, cinereous each side, a slight 
impressed dorsal line; base with the edge almost angulated, central 
* If it was merely a consideration of getting rid of the maggots or chrysalids, 
the grinding might be expected to be successful; but with the fully developed 
beetles it may not always be so, at least in former methods of grinding it was not; 
for John Curtis gives an instance of a cargo of 1000 quarters of large Beans 
imported from Sicily to Newcastle-on-Tyne in September, 1850, being so infested 
that the meal after passing through the millstones was apparently alive with the 
beetles, which took wing and flew about the mill in thousands.—‘ Farm Insects,’ by 
John Curtis, note, p. 363. 
+ See ‘Insect Life,’ vol. vii., No. 5, p. 419; edited, by L. O. Howard, Entomo- 
logist of the U.S.A. Board of Agriculture, Washington, 1895; received whilst these 
notes were in preparation, 
