8 ON ENTOMOLOGY. 



it digs a similar burrow about a yard deep, and when kept in a pot and 

 prevented from going deep enough, it shows great uneasiness and often 

 dies. The perfect Beetle comes forth from the pupa in January or 

 February ; but it is then as soft as it was whilst still a Grub, and does 

 not acquire its hardness and colour for ten or twelve days, nor does it 

 venture above ground before May, on the fourth year from the time of 

 its hatching. At this time, the beetles may be observed issuing from 

 their holes in the evening, and dashing themselves about in the air as 

 if blind. 



Another Beetle Grub, popularly called the Meal Worm, the larva of 

 (Tenebrio Molitor) which lives in that state two years, does no little dam- 

 age to flour, as well as to bread, cakes, biscuit and similar articles, Sparr- 

 man tells us, that he has witnessed the ground peas on shipboard, so in- 

 fested with these Grubs, that they were seen in every spoonful of soup. 



THE NUT WEEVIL (Balaminus Nucum.) This Weevil, like the rest of 

 its congenors, is furnished with an instrument for depositing its eggs, 

 considerably different from those of the Ichneumon and Saw flies. For 

 this purpose the Weevil makes use of its long horny beak (^Rostrum), 

 to drill a hole in filberts and hazel nuts, while in their young and soft 

 state about the beginning of August. The mother Weevil may then be seen 

 eagerly running over the bushes, and it would appear that she always 

 rejects the nuts, in which one of her neighbours may have previously 

 laid an egg, at least we never find two Grubs in the same nut. The 

 egg which is thus thrust in the young nut, is of a brown colour, and is 

 hatched in about a fortnight ; the Grub feeding on the interior of the 

 shell as well as the soft pulp, till the one becomes too hard, and the 

 other too dry to be nutritive. It is remarkable that during this period, 

 he takes care not to injure the kernel, but permits it to ripen before he 

 attacks it. Had he done this prematurely, he would have ultimately been 

 starved, as he has not the power of perforating another nut, when the 

 first is consumed. It is said also, that he is very careful to preserve the 

 original hole made by the mother, by gnawing round its inner edges in 

 order to facilitate his exit, which he effects when the nut falls to the 

 ground in September or October. The hole found in the nut appears 

 much too small to have admitted of its passage, but from being very 

 soft, it no doubt stretches itself out for the purpose, using its short 

 claws as instruments of motion. Rosel, in order to observe the trans- 

 formation of these nut Grubs, put a number of them at the commence- 

 ment of winter into glasses half-filled with earth, covered with green 

 turf. All of them dug directly down into the earth, remained there all 

 the winter, and did not change into pupae till the following June, the 

 perfect Weevils appeared from the 1st till about the 20th of August ; 

 but still kept under-ground for the first week after their change. 



Some of the larvae of Beetles excavate galleries in the soft inner bark 

 of trees or between it and the young wood. In 1783 the trees destroyed 



