148 



a yachting voyage in 1859 at TeneriiFe he observed a peculiar 



stridulation from the genua Acalles Schoon. His ser- 

 vant brought him eleven specimens of Acalles Argilloaat, 

 collected in the rotten stem of a Euphorbia, which at the time 

 he thought very little of, and was about to dispose of them when 

 he heard a loud, grating, almost chirping noise, on looking 

 closer for the mysterious cause, he observed that it 

 emanated from one of the beetles. He kept them for some time 

 for the purpose of discovering how this noise wa3 caused. At 

 length his eye was arrested by a minute vibration of the apical 

 segment of the abdomen. You may have observed the same 

 music from many of our longicorn family, in fact most of them 

 possess that means of making themselves heard. In the case of 

 the longicorns, this noise is produ.;ed by the friction of the 

 thorax, by rubbing the posterior saddle-shaped unflexed overlap 

 of the prothorax on the front edge of the suture of the 

 mesothorax. 



You can easily observe this, by taking an Acrocimui 

 lonijimanus between your fingers, and you will follow these 

 movements very easily. The family to which the weevils 

 belong is called ByncJiophora from the Greek word 

 which signifies " beak bearer." I will here describe 

 the most peculiar and interesting types we possess, some of 



which are attacking the sugar cane. 

 The first is a very curiously shaped 

 beetle, the Bhina barbtcomis (fig 1 ). 

 This species is rather uncommon 

 here, and though I have one in my 

 collection, I never captured any 

 myself. According to Mdme. de 

 Merian it is found on a species of 

 convolvulus. The trunk is black 

 and adorned with hairs, the elytra 

 are punctured and striated. It is 

 a vi-ry striking insect. The head 

 is slender, long and the end is 

 flattened, shaped t^omewhat like an 

 axe. The antennae are placed in 

 the middle of the rostrum and this 

 is surrounded with a quantity of 

 hairs radiating from the head, these 

 hairs are of a dirty yellow colour. 



FIG. 1 



On the elytra there are numerous rounded pits parallel to each 

 other, in which there is a sort of white dust buried, some of 



