THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 55 



beans; but our insect differs from all of them and especially from the 

 Grain Bruchus, to which it has been erroneously referred by Dr. A. 

 S. Packard, Jr.* If it were the imported Grain Bruchus, our peas 

 and some other grains would probably suffer as much from its attacks 

 as our beans, because that species infests peas and other seeds in Eu- 

 rope ; but in reality we have no more reason to believe that our Bean- 

 weevil will attack our peas than that the Pea-weevil will attack our 

 beans. 



The general color of our Bean-weevil is tawny-gray, the ground- 

 color being dark and the whole body covered with a grayish pubes- 

 cence which inclines to yellow or fulvous, or wears a slight moss- 

 green hue, and is shaded as in Figure 19, a. It is but half the size of 

 the Pea-weevil and has the four or five basal joints and the terminal 

 joint of the antennae, and the legs, with the exception of the lower 

 and inner part of the hind thighs, reddish-brown. 



Bruchus fab.e N. Sp. (Fig-. 19,)— General color tawny-gray with more ov less dull yellowish. 

 Body black tinged with brown and with dull yellowish pubescence, the pygidium and sides of abdo- 

 men almost always brownish. Head dull yellowish-gray with the jaws dark brown and palpi 

 black ; antennae not deeply serrate in $, more so in $ ; dark brown or black with usually 5, some- 

 times only 4, sometimes 4 and part of 5 basal joints, and with the terminal joint, more or less 

 distinctly rufous, or testaceous, the color being so slight in some specimens as scarcely to contrast 

 at all with the darker joints. Thorax narrowed before, immaculate, but with the pubescence 

 almost always exhibiting a single pale medio-dorsal line, sometimes three dorsal lines, more 

 rarely a transverse line in addition, and still more rarely (two specimens) forming a 

 large dark, almost black patch each side, leaving- a median stripe and the extreme 

 borders pale and thus approaching closely to crythroccrus Dej. ; base with the edges 

 almost angulated; central lobe almost truncate and with a short longitudinal deeply impressed 

 median line: no lateral notch; scutel concolorous and quadrate with the hind edge more 

 ■or less notched. Elytra with the interstitial lines having a slight appearance of alternating 

 transversely with dull yellowish and dusky; so slight however that in most of the specimens it can 

 hardly be traced : the dark shadings form a spot on each shoulder and three transverse bands 

 tolerably distinct in some, almost obsolete in others, the intermediate row being the most persistent 

 and conspicuous : between these dark transverse rows the interstices are alternately more or less 

 pale, especially on the middle of the 3rd interstitial lines. Legs covered with grayish pubescence, 

 and with the tibia; and tarsi, especially of first and second pair, reddish-brown ; the hind thighs 

 usually somewhat darker, becoming black below and inside, and with a tolerably long black spine 

 followed by two very minute ones. Length 0.09—0.14 inch. Described from 40 specimens all 

 bred from different kinds of beans. Hundreds of others examined. 



This insect has been for several years ticketed in some of the Eastern collections by the name 

 of B.fabte, or else, what is worse, the corruption of it, fabi. The former name has been disseminated 

 by my friend F. G. Sanborn of Boston, Massachusetts, who says that he received the weevil thus 

 nampd, together with beans attacked by it, in the year 1862 from Rhode Island. The name was 

 credited to Fabricius, but I can find no notice in any of the works I possess of any European 

 Bruchus fabcB, and several of my Eastern correspondents who have access to large libraries have 

 been unable to find any description or allusion to a species by that name. Dr LeConte has given it 

 the MS name of varicornis but as his description will not appear perhaps lor years to come and 

 as no comprehensive description has yet been published, 1 have deemed it advisable to dispel in a 

 measure the confusion that surrounds the nomenclature of the species. There is need of a descrip- 

 tion of so injurious an insect, and a,? fab a, is not preoccupied I adopt the name because it is entirely 

 appropriate and because it is more easily rendered into terse popular language that varicornis f 



* Injurious insects new and little known, pp. 19-21. 



f No one can have a greater regard than I have, for the work of our great Coleoptenst, Br. 

 LeConte, who is justly looked up to as our authority in his specialty ; and for no other reason 

 than the one given above would 1 venture to disregard even one of his manuscript names. Were 

 he now at home, I should have corresponded with him on the subject, and I feel satisfied that he 

 would have sanctioned this course. These remarks are prompted by the fact that certain entomolo- 



