144 COMMON BRITISH INSECTS. 



surface, and may be skimmed off and burned. As, 

 however, damaged corn and rice can both com- 

 mand a sale, and as all damaged grain is not 

 attacked by the Weevil, the dealers will seldom 

 employ such a measure ; though to destroy all 

 the light corn for the sake of killing the Weevils 

 would in the long run be more profitable than 

 keeping it for sale and allowing the Weevils to 

 live. 



The destruction wrought by these tiny foes can 

 scarcely be over-estimated, but some idea of it may be 

 estimated from the following state- 

 ments which were made at the Ento- 

 mological Society, April 4, 1870. 

 Seventy-four tons of Spanish wheat 

 had been carefully sifted or ' screened ' 

 to separate the Weevils from it, and 

 out of this quantity ten hundredweight 

 of Weevils were sifted. Again, one 

 hundred and forty-five tons of Ameri- 

 can maize were subjected to the same process, and at 

 two siftings a ton and three quarters of Weevils were 

 removed. Now, each of these Beetles had consumed 

 several times its own weight of corn before it attained 

 the perfect state ; and the reader may see that, if the 

 grain had been subjected to the water-test and the 

 light portion burned, the proprietor would have saved 

 the cost of some two tons of corn, instead of allowing 

 it to be eaten by these insect devourers, the stock of 

 whom increased in proportion to the diminution of 

 the stores. It is rather a remarkable fact that all 

 these Beetles were Rice, and not Corn Weevils, 



