508 THE INSECT WOELD. 



Next day the surgeon having seen Latreille again in his prison, 

 was obliged to confess to him that in his friend's opinion this 

 Coleopteron had never been described. Latreille knew by this 

 answer that Bory de Saint Vincent was an adept. As they gave 

 the prisoner neither pen nor paper, he said to his messenger, 



"I see plainly that M. Bory de Saint Yincent must know my 

 name. You will tell him that I am the Abbe Latreille, and that 

 I am going to die at Guyana, before having published my ' Examen 

 des Genres de Fabricius.' ' 



Bory, on receiving this piece of news, took active steps, and 

 obtained leave for Latreille to come out of his prison, as a con- 

 valescent, his uncle Dayclas and his father being bail for him, 

 and pledging themselves formally to deliver up the prisoner 

 the moment they were summoned to do so by the authorities. 

 The vessel which was to have conducted Latreille to exile or 

 rather to death, was getting ready whilst these steps were being 

 taken, and while Bory and Dayclas were obtaining leave for him 

 to come out of prison. This was quite providential, for it foundered 

 in sight of Cordova, and the sailors alone were able to save them- 

 selves. A little time afterwards his friends managed to have his 

 name scratched out from the list of the exiles. It is thus that 

 the Necrobia ruficollis was the saving of Latreille. 



The tribe of weevils is even much more numerous than that of 

 the Elateridce and the Buprestidce. One may know them by their 

 head prolonged into a snout or trumpet, by their rudimentary 

 mouth, and by their elbowed antennas. There exist about twenty 

 thousand species. They feed on vegetables. Their larvaa are 

 soft, whitish worms, without legs, with very small heads, and live 

 in the interior of the stalks or seeds of plants, often occasioning 

 enormous damage. They are one of the plagues of agriculture. 

 Each of our dry vegetables, each variety of our cereals, has in 

 this immense family its particular enemy. 



First are the Bruchi. The Pea weevil (Bruchus pisi, Fig. 554), 

 which is brown with white spots, comes out of the pea, at the 

 end of the summer. The female lays her eggs on peas which 

 are ripe, and still standing, in which the larva scoops out a habi- 

 tation, and then makes its exit by a circular hole (Fig. 555). It 

 remains at rest all the winter, and is not hatched till towards the 



