78 DR. HARRIS'S REPORT. April, 



one or two inches. In this they are allowed to stand an hour or two, 

 when all llio bugs will be found dead and floating, and the pease will 

 be in a state for immediate planting. The Baltimore Oriole or hang- 

 bird, is a|)pointed to check the increase of this insect, by picking 

 from the green pea the larva on which it feeds. 



In the genus Jlnthribus, the head is elongated into a broad snout 

 or rostrum. The body is short, thick, and obtuse, or truncated 

 behind ; the antennae are straight, abruptly thickened at tip into a 

 three-jointed mass or club; the thorax is transverse, broadest behind, 

 and lobed ; the posterior extremity is covered by the elytra. 



Jlnthribus marmoreus lives in the larva state in the solid wood of 

 the oak, where also it undergoes its metamorphoses. 



The succeeding insects, which are furnished with snouts or rostra, 

 belong to the family CurcuIionidcB^ so named from a genus of Lin- 

 naeus in which they were included. They are popularly named 

 weevils, and are widely spread through vegetation; almost every grain 

 and seed having its peculiar species, and the trunks and leaves of a 

 great number of plants are also infested by them. The larvae are 

 more or less oval or approach to a conical form. They are desti- 

 tute of legs, unless we may call by that name certain fleshy tuber- 

 cles at the sides of the body, besmeared in some species with a 

 tenacious slime, which assist them in their motions. These motions 

 are effected by the alternate contraction and extension of the seg- 

 ments of the body. They have a horny head, by which they are 

 distinguished from the maggots of flies. The pupa? do not differ 

 greailv from those of other coleopterous insects, exhibiting the rudi- 

 ments of feet and wings through the thin pellicle which envelopes 

 every part. 



According to Kirby and Spence, several species of Harpalus 

 (insects belonging to the Carabidm) prey upon the perfect insects. 

 The larvae fall victims to several Ichneumon flies, to woodpeckers, 

 and to other birds. 



The habits of the s,enus Brenthus have not hitherto been described. 

 Their characters are these. Antennae straight, not tapering at the 

 ends ; body hard, elongated, somewhat cylindrical ; head, rostrum or 

 beak straight and porrected, in the female very slender and long, in 

 the male short, robust, dilated at the end, and with large and dis- 



