Ceuthorrhynchus. | RHYNCHOPHORA. 341 
belonging to the tribe ; it contains, as far as is at present known, up- 
wards of two hundred and fifty species, but in all probability is much 
more extensive ; no less than one hundred and sixty of these are found 
in Europe; a certain amount, which will probably be increased, occur 
in Siberia and Central Asia, and a very few in North and South 
America; species have also been described from Algeria, Madeira, 
Ceylon, &c., but I do not know of any from the Australian region; they 
may be known by their short broad form, the 7-jointed funiculus 
of the antenne, and the incised shoulders of elytra. 
The males of Ceuthorrhynchus, according to Bedel, may be known 
by having a little claw at the apical internal angle of the intermediate 
or posterior tibiz; besides this there is usually a more or less distinct 
impression or fovea towards the base of the abdomen, ora bunch of hairs 
or some other mark on the second or fifth ventral segments of the 
abdomen ; in certain species the proportions of the rostrum are different 
in the two sexes, in which case that of the female is always the 
longest. 
The Jarve are small, stout, whitish, occasionally yellowish, grubs ; they live on the 
same plants as the perfect insects, and undergo their metamorphoses in the stalks, 
flowers or fruits; some of them form galls or excrescences at the foot of the root-stalk 
or on the roots themselves, and one or two of our British species are well known as 
attacking cabbage and turnip plants; the best known of these is C. pleurostigma, 
Marsh (sulcicollis, Gyll.), the larva of which is white when found at the roots of 
cabbage, and yellowish or flesh coloured when it attacks swedes; these larve form 
galls or excrescences at the roots, and apparently when full fed they leave their hiding- 
place and enter the earth to undergo their final transformations; the perfect beetle 
gnaws the leaves and in all probability deposits its eggs at the roots of the plant; 
figures of the perfect insect, larve and galls will be found given by Curtis (Farm 
Insects, p. 132); the damage done to turnips is not of much account apparently, but 
young cabbages are often much injured by the attack ; Miss Ormerod recommends as 
a remedy the careful burning of old cabbage stalks and especially a change of crop, 
as the weevils will not attack carrots, parsnips, corn, &c.; the use of gas-lime, caustic 
lime, soot, wood-ashes and spent hops has also been found of great service. 
Another very common species that does much damage to the seed- 
pods of the turnip, and, I believe, of mustard and other Cruciferz, is 
C. assimilis (Payk.), which is of about the same size as C. pleuro- 
stigma, but is much greyer, being thickly clothed with grey scales, 
whereas the latter insect is deep black, rather shining, and almost 
glabrous on its upper surface ; the small species C. contractus (Marsh), 
is also said to have done very great damage to young turnips by punctur- 
ing and destroying the young leaves in much the same fash‘on as the 
turnip-tlea (Phyllotreta nemorum); I have net, however, heard of its 
ever having proved very injurious of late years. 
There are thirty-seven British species, some of which are very closely 
allied ; it is, however, as a rule, not difficult to distinguish fresh speci- 
mens, but the scales are very easily rubbed and the identification of such 
specimens is of course harder in a large genus than in a small one; in 
one or two cases, e.g. C. marginatus, C. punctiger and C. rotundatus, the 
