THE GENESEE EAEMEK. 



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were made known, this doubt would at once be removed. To give each of these 

 weevils a short, appropriate, significant, and purely English name, would be very diffi- 

 cult, if not impossible, and there would be great danger of over-burdening the memory 

 with such a number of names ; but by means of the ingenious and simple method of 

 nomenclature invented by Linn^us, these weevils are all arranged under three hundred 

 and fifty-five generical or surnames, requiring the addition of a small number of difi"erent 

 words, like christian names, to indicate the various species or kinds. There is often 

 times great convenience in the use of single collective terms for groups of animals and 

 plants, whereby the necessity of enumerating all the individual contents or character- 

 istics of these groups is avoided. Thus the single word Ruminantia stands for camels, 

 lamas, giraftes, deer, antelopes, goats, sheep, and kine, or for all the hoofed quadrupeds 

 which ruinate or chew the cud, and have no front teeth in the upper jaw." 



These remarks of Dr. H. illustrate an important principle in the study of Natural 

 History, and are equally applicable to its every department. Weevils differ from most 

 other coleopterous insects, and especially from ground-beetles, cockchafers, or May- 

 beetles, flower-beetles, stag-beetles, saw-horned borers, spring-beetles, and timber beetles, 

 in the anatomy of their feet. These beetles all have five joints in their feet, whereas 

 weevils have but four. Weevils in the winged state are hard-shelled beetles, and are 

 distinguished from other insects by having the fore part of the head prolonged into a 

 broad muzzle, or a large and more slender snout, in the end of which is the mouth, 

 which is armed with horny jaws. 



The generic name of weevil is Rhynchoj^horidoe — literally, snout-bearers. They are 

 usually of small size, with their antennae knobbed at the end. The antennae spring not 

 from the head, but from the snout or muzzle, which is generally grooved to receive the 

 base of these appendages. Their feelers or palpi are very small, and in most kinds are 

 concealed within the mouth. The abdomen is often of an oval form, and wider than 

 the thorax. The legs are short, not fitted for running or digging, and the soles of the 

 feet are short and flattened. They like the sunshine, and are abroad in the day time. 

 Some fly well, but others are wingless, or nearly so, and unable to fly. They walk 

 slowly, and when alarmed turn back their antennae under the snout, fold up their legs, 

 and fall from the plants on which they live. They use their snouts not only in feeding, 

 but to bore holes in which to deposit their eggs. 



The young of these snout-beetles are mostly short, fleshy grubs, of a whitish color, 

 and without legs. The covering of their heads is a hard shell, and the rings on their 

 bodies are very convex or hunched, by both of which characters they are easily dis- 

 tinguished from the maggots of flies. Their jaws are strong and horny, and with them 

 they gnaw the plants and seeds on which they subsist. It is in the grub state that weevils 

 are most injurious to vegetation. Some of them bore into and spoil fruits, grain, and 

 other seeds ; some attack the leaves and stems of plants, causing them to swell and 

 become cankered, while others penetrate the solid wood, arrest the course of sap, and 

 cause the branch above the seat of attack to wither and die. Most of grubs are trans- 

 formed within the vegetable substances upon which they have lived; some, however, 

 when fully grown, go into the ground, where they are changed to pupae, and afterwards 

 become beetles or weevils. The weQvils best known to farmers, because most injurious, 

 are the wheat-weevils, rice-wee\als, pea-weevils, plum-weevils, blight-weevils, and pine 

 or bark-weevils. The true grain or wheat-weevil, Calandra granaria, or Curculio 

 granarius of Linn^us, in its perfect state is a slender beetle of a pitchy red color, about 

 one-eighth of an inch long, with a slender snout slightly bent downward, a coarsely punc- 

 tured and very long thorax, constituting almost one-half the length of the whole body, 

 and wing-covers that are furrowed, and do not entirely cover the tip of the abdomen. 

 This little insect, both in the beetle and grub state, devours stored wheat and other 

 grains, and at the south is often very destructive, but less so in the middle States, and is 





