82 COLEOPTERA. 



One of the black dots is on the scutel, and the others are 

 on the hinder angles of the thorax ; and by these it can be 

 readily distinguished from other species. According to Miss 

 Morris, it lays its eggs singly on the plant at the base of a 

 leaf. The grubs burrow into and consume the inner sub- 

 stance of the stalk, proceeding downwards towards the root. 

 In many fields in the neighborhood of Germantown every 

 stem was found to be infested by these insects, causing the 

 premature decay of the vines, and giving to them the appear- 

 ance of having been scalded. The insects undergo all their 

 transformations in the stalks. Their pupa state lasts from 

 fourteen to twenty days, and they take the beetle form dur- 

 ing the last of August and beginning of September. These 

 insects, though common enough in the Middle States, I have 

 never found in New England, in the course of thirty years 

 of observation, and have failed to discover them here since 

 my attention was called to their depredations by Miss Morris. 

 That they may become very injurious to the potato crop 

 where they abound, will be readily admitted ; but, as they 

 do not occur in all places, either here or in Europe, where 

 the potato-rot has prevailed, they cannot be justly said to 

 produce this disease.* 



The most pernicious of the Rhynchophorians, or snout- 

 beetles, are the insects properly called grain- weevils, belong- 

 ing to the old genus Calandra. These insects must not be 

 confounded with the still more destructive larvae of the corn- 

 moth (Tinea granella), which also attacks stored grain, nor 

 with the orange-colored maggots of the wheat-fly ( Cecidomyia 

 Tritici), which are found in the ears of growing wheat. Al- 

 though the grain-weevils are not actually injurious to vege- 

 tation, yet as the name properly belonging to them has often 

 been misapplied in this country, thereby creating no little 

 confusion, some remarks upon them may tend to prevent 

 future mistakes. 



* See my communication on this insect, &c., in the New England Farmer, for 

 June 22, 1850, Vol. II. p. 204. 



