Otiorhynchus stilcahis. 159 



gression, and are furnished with fine bristles ; the body is also 

 sparingly clothed with hairs, thus differing in several respects 

 from the well-known grub of the nut weevil. The skull (c) is 

 round and horny, smaller than the following segment : the 

 eyes and antennae appear to be entirely obsolete : the clypeus 

 (cl) is transverse, as well as the upper lip (I l); the latter is 

 furnished in front with a row of hairs, and is thickened in a tri- 

 angular manner in the middle. The mandibles (m), which are the 

 chief instruments with which the destruction of the plants is 

 effected, are horny, and furnished at the tip with two teeth, 

 which are, in fact, merely portions of the jaw, and not separate 

 appendages, as in the higher animals ; the lower jaws, or max- 

 illae (mx.), and the lower lip (1 2), are considerably advanced, 

 so as to extend beyond the upper lip ; the maxillge are fleshy, 

 with a rounded internal lobe, and a single, apparently two-jointed, 

 palpus; the mentum (m 2), or basal part of the lower lip, is 

 transverse, and larger than the lip (1 2), which is furnished with 

 a pair of minute two-jointed palpi ; the hairs on the segments 

 of the body seem disposed in transverse series, which are pro- 

 bably serviceable in motion. 



Bouche {Naturgesch. Garten-Inseht.^ p. 28. ; and Nahirg. der 

 Insekt., p. 201.) informs us that, in the neighbourhood of Berlin, 

 this larva is found, in the autumn and winter, at the roots of plants 

 belonging to the genera Saxifraga, T;o//n/s, &c. ; which it gnaws 

 round the upper part of the roots, and so causes the plants to 

 perish. It was especially abundant in the spring of 1832; at 

 which period, the destruction which it caused in plants in pots 

 was very great. 



Some of the larvae which I obtained from Mr. Haworth were 

 placed by me in a pot, which I endeavoured to keep in a situa- 

 tion as nearly agreeing with that in which they were found as 

 possible. About the middle of the following May, I examined 

 these insects, and still found them to be in the larva state ; but, 

 on again examining them a fortnight afterwards, all had made 

 their escape except one ; one of the perfect insects being still on 

 the outside of the gauze covering of the pot, in which a hole had 

 been made, evidently by the insects on arriving at the perfect 

 state. On the 8th of June, the remaining larva had turned into 

 a white pupa (d, natural size; E, ditto magnified, seen with a 

 ventral aspect; and f, ditto seen laterally). I did not observe 

 any appearance of a cocoon, the earth alone being scooped into 

 an oval cell, the inside of which was very smooth. Bouche also 

 states that the larva forms no cocoon. 



This pupa is of an oblong form, and exhibits all the limbs of 

 the future beetle (belonging to that kind of pupa which is termed 

 incomplete). The wing-covers (Eandr x ) are of a small size, and 

 rest over the breast, leaving the back exposed ; the head is also 



