CHAPTER XIX. 



INSECTS INFESTING GRAIN. 



A NUMBER of destructive insects feed upon dry grain flour, seeds, 

 pulse and other dry food-stuffs, occurring in great quantity 



wherever these are stored in bulk 

 and working a very large aggregate 

 amount of destruction. They are 

 common also throughout the villages 

 of India, where special means of 

 storage are used to exclude them, 

 not always successfully. 



They belong to two orders, 

 the beetles and the moths, the 

 FIG. 298. former being the more abundant. 



Rice Weevil Grub. (Magnified.) NO extensive investigation has ever 

 been conducted into these pests in India and the available information 

 has been gleaned from reports or discovered in chance investigation, 



The Rice Weevil. 1 



A small dark-coloured weevil, about one-eighth of an inch long with 

 a prominent curved snout. It lays 

 its eggs on rice, corn, wheat and 

 other grains, in little indentations 

 made with its jaws ; the larvse eat 

 into the grain, become full grown 

 there and emerge as weevils 

 after passing through the pupa 

 stage. The insect is apparently 

 abundant everywhere in India, 

 and is known throughout the 

 warmer parts of the world. It is 

 injurious to nearly all varieties of 

 grain. 



The Wheat Beetle. 8 



The Wheat Beetle has been 



found attacking wheat and other 



stored produce in India, its larvse 



I 



FIG. 299. 

 Eice Weevil Pupa. (Magnified.) 



Calandra oryza. L, (Curculionidae.) | a Trogosita mauritanica, L. (Trogoeitidae.) 



