WEEVILS. 



WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. 



and the snout is slender, cylindrical, inclined, 

 and nearly as long as the thorax. On account 

 of the length of the snout this insect has been 

 placed in the genus Rhyncheenus by some natu- 

 ralists ; but the antennae are implanted before 

 the middle of the snout, and not far from the 

 sides of the mouth. This beetle measures 

 from two to three-eighths of an inch in length, 

 exclusive of the snout. It may be found in 

 great abundance, in May and June, on board- 

 fences, the sides of new wooden buildings, and 

 on the trunks of pine trees. I have discovered 

 them, in considerable numbers, under the bark 

 of the pitch pine. The larvae, which do not ma- 

 terially differ from those of other weevils, in- 

 habit these and probably other kinds of pines, 

 doing sometimes immense injury to them. 

 Wilson, the ornithologist, describes the depre- 

 dations of these insects, in his account of the 

 ivory-billed woodpecker, in the following 

 words. "Would it be believed that the larvae 

 of an insect, or fly, no larger than a grain of 

 rice, should silently, and in one season, destroy 

 some thousand acres of pine trees, many of 

 them from 2 to 3 feet in diameter, and 150 feet 

 high ? Yet whoever passes along the high- 

 road from Georgetown to Charleston, in South 

 Carolina, about 20 miles from the former place, 

 can have striking and melancholy proofs of 

 the fact. In some places the whole woods, as 

 far as you can see around you, are dead, stripped 

 of the bark, their wintry-looking arms and bare 

 trunks bleaching in the sun, and tumbling in 

 ruins before every blast, presenting a frightful 

 picture of desolation. Until some effectual 

 preventive or more complete remedy can be 

 devised against these insects and their larvae, 

 I would humbly suggest the propriety of pro- 

 tecting, and receiving with proper feelings of 

 gratitude, the services of this and the whole 

 tribe of woodpeckers, letting the odium of 

 guilt fall to its proper owners." (American 

 Ornithology, vol. iv. p. 21.) Some years ago 

 Mr. Nuttall procured, near the place above 

 mentioned, specimens of the destructive in- 

 sects referred to by Wilson. They were of 

 three kinds. Those in greatest abundance 

 were the pales weevil. One of the others was 

 a larger, darker-coloured weevil, without white 

 spots on it, and named Hylobius picivorus, by 

 Germar and Schonherr, or the pitch-eating 

 weevil ; it is seldom found in Massachusetts. 

 The third was the white pine weevil. It is said 

 that these beetles puncture the buds and the 

 tender bark of the small branches, and feed 

 upon the juice, and that the young shoots 

 are often so much injured by them as to die 

 and break off at the wounded part. But it 

 is in the larva state that they are found to be 

 most hurtful to the pines. The larvce live 

 tinder the bark, devouring its soft inner sur- 

 face, and the tender newly formed wood. When 

 they abound, as they do in some of the pine 

 forests of the United States, they separate large 

 pieces of bark from the wood beneath, in con- 

 sequence of which the part perishes, and the i 

 tree itself soon languishes and dies. 



The white pine weevil, Rltynchccnus (Pissodes') 

 Strobi, of Professor Peck, unites with the two 

 preceding insects in destroying the Ameri- 

 can pines, as above described. But it em- 

 1110 



ploys also another mode of attack on the white 

 pine, of which an interesting account is given, 

 by the late Professor Peck, the first describer 

 of the insect, in the 4th volume of the Massa- 

 chusetts Agricultural Repository and Journal, ac- 

 companied by figures of the insect. The lofty 

 stature of the white pine, and the straightness 

 of its trunk depend, as Professor Peck has re- 

 marked, upon the constant health of its leading 

 slioot, for a long succession of years ; and if 

 this shoot be destroyed, the tree becomes 

 stunted and deformed in its subsequent growth. 

 This accident is not uncommon, and is caused 

 by the ravages of the white pine weevil. This 

 beetle is oblong-oval, rather slender, of a 

 brownish colour, thickly punctured, and varie- 

 gated with small brown, rust-coloured, and 

 whitish scales. There are two white dots on. 

 the thorax ; the scutel is white ; and on the 

 wing-covers, which are punctured in rows, 

 there is a whitish transverse band behind the 

 middle. The snout is longer than the thorax, 

 slender, and a very little inclined. The length 

 of this insect, exclusive of its snout, varies 

 from one-fifth to three-tenths of an inch. Its 

 eggs are deposited on the leading shoot of the 

 pine, probably immediately under the outer 

 bark. The larvae, hatched therefrom, bore into 

 the shoot in various directions, and probably 

 remain in the wood more than one year. 

 When the feeding state is passed, but before 

 the insect is changed to a pupa, it gnaws a 

 passage from the inside quite to the bark, 

 which, however, remaining untouched, serves 

 to shelter the little borers from the weather. 

 After they have changed to beetles, they have 

 only to cut away the outer bark to make their 

 escape. They begin to come out early in Sep- 

 tember, and continue to leave the wood through 

 that month and a part of October. The shoot 

 at this time will be found pierced with small 

 round holes' on all sides ; sometimes 30 or 40 

 may be counted on one shoot. (Harris.') See 

 CORN WEETIL, CCRCULIO, GRAIN WEEVIL, PEA 

 WEEVIL, PLUM TREE WEEVIL, &c. 



WEIGH. In England, a weight of cheese, 

 wool, &c., containing 256 Ibs. avoirdupois. Of 

 corn, the weigh contains 40 bushels ; of barley 

 or malt, 6 quarters. A weigh of cheese or 

 butter in Suffolk is 256 Ibs., and in Essex 

 336 Ibs. 



WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. The pro- 

 portions or quantities by which various sorts 

 of agricultural or other produce are disposed 

 of. In Britain they vary greatly in different 

 districts, and even in different places of the 

 same district or county. 



In a general sense the term measure is ap- 

 plied to that by which any thing is compared 

 in respect of quantity. Thus we have mea- 

 sures of extension, of weight, time, force, re- 

 sistance, temperature, &c.; in short, of every- 

 thing of which greater or less can be predi- 

 cated; and it frequently happens that the unit 

 or measure is not taken in the thing or pro- 

 perty which is the immediate subject of con- 

 sideration, but in something else which de- 

 pends on it, or is proportional to it. Angular 

 space, for example, is measured by an arc of a 

 circle ; time, by the rotation of the earth upon 

 its axis, or its revolution around the sun ; force, 



