THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 135 
have followed, Entomology most of my life, and have seen 
many destructive insects, but [ never saw anything like this 
before. They injure fresh shoots every night; so you may judge 
of the wholesale destruction they are causing. My friend has 
put soot round each stool, but they seem to like that. Now is 
the time for tying the hop-bine, but of course that would be 
useless.—L. R. Sheppard; 13, Limes Villas, High Road, 
Lewisham, Kent, S.E., May 3, 1876. 
(The beetle is Otiorhynchus picipes: it is entirely nocturnal 
in its perambulations, hiding in the earth by day, generally 
close to the stool of the hop-plant, where it is secure from 
observation. The hop-bine is hollow like a reed, and 
hexagonal; its outside wall or coating being very rough to 
the touch. The beetles emerge from their hiding-place at 
dusk, and climb up the bine, each commencing nibbling just 
where it suits his inclination, holding on during the operation 
by the tenacious claws or hooks, with which all his legs are 
furnished; and indeed so tight does he cling with them that 
it is difficult to remove him against his will; but, notwith- 
standing this, he will frequently feign death, and throw 
himself to the ground, there to remain perfectly motionless, 
aud exactly like a little lump of earth, until he believes all 
danger past, when he will slowly and deliberately ascend the 
bine as before. He seems to possess but a small mouth: 
this is situated at the extremity of a snout or rostrum, and is 
furnished with a pair of corneous jaws, with which he digs a 
way into the wall of the bine in many different places, 
seldom passing entirely through, but being apparently quite 
content with having stopped the circulation of the sap, and 
thereby suspended vitality in that particular bine, and 
defeated all its endeavours to produce hops. The particular 
bine becomes flaccid, and to all appearance lifeless; yet this 
by no means interferes with the ability of the stool to 
produce more bines, although these, being later, are very 
rarely so productive, neither are they so likely to bring their 
hops to maturity. I always find the strongest, largest, and 
most succulent bines selected for the attack; and I have also 
remarked that when the attack has proved fatal to one 
particular bine, and it has become flabby and flaccid, it 
loses all the attraction it possessed for the weevil, and is 
neglected, in order that another more healthy victim, one fuller 
