'lorrliynclms.'} 



RHYNCHOPHORA. 



341 



belonging to the tribe ; it contains, as far as is at present known, up- 

 wards of two hundred and fifty species, but in all probability is much 

 more extensive ; no less than one hundred and sixty of these are found 

 in Europe ; a certain amount, which will probably be increased, occur 

 in Siberia and Central Asia, and a very few in Xorth and South 

 America ; species have also been described from Algeria, Madeira, 

 Ceylon, &c., but I do not know of any from the Australian region ; they . 

 in ay be known by their short broad form, the 7-jointed funiculus 

 of the antennse, and the incised shoulders of elytra. 



The males of Ceuthorrhynchus, according to Bedel, may be known 

 by having a little claw at the apical internal angle of the intermediate 

 or posterior tibiae ; besides this there is usually a more or less distinct 

 impression or fovea towards the base of the abdomen, or a bunch of hairs 

 or some other mark on the second or fifth ventral segments of the 

 abdomen ; in certain species the proportions of the rostrum are different 

 in the two sexeSj in which case that of the female is always the 

 longest. 



The larvae are small, stout, whitish, occasionally yellowish, grubs ; they live on the 

 same plants as the perfect insects, and undergo their metamorphoses in the stalks, 

 flowers or fruits ; some of them, form galls or excrescences at the foot of the root-stalk 

 or on the roots themselves, and one or two of our British species are well known as 

 attacking cabbage and turnip plants ; the best known of these is C. pleurostigma, 

 Marsh (sulcicollis, Gyll.), the larva of which is white when found at the roots of 

 cabbage, and yellowish or flesh coloured when it attacks swedes ; these larvae form 

 galls or excrescences at the roots, and apparently when fall fed they leave their hiding- 

 place and enter the earth to undergo their final transformations ; the perfect beetle 

 gnaws the leaves and in all probability deposits its eggs at the roots of the plant ; 

 figures of the perfect insect, larvae and galls will be found given by Curtis (Farm 

 Insects, p. 132) ; the damage done to turnip.s is not of rnnch account apparently, but 

 young cabbages are often much injured by the attack ; Miss Ormerod recommends as 

 a remedy the careful burning of old cabbage stalks and especially a change of crop, 

 as the weevils will not attack carrots, parsnips, corn, &c. ; the use of gas-lime, caustic 

 lime, soot, wood-ashes and spent hops has also been found of great service. 



Another very common species that does much damage to the seed- 

 pods of the turnip, and, I believe, of mustard and other Crwiferae, is 

 C. as&imilis (Payk.), which is of about the same size as C. pleuro- 

 stigma, but is much greyer, being thickly clothed with grey scales, 

 "whereas the latter insect is deep black, rather shining, and almost 

 glabrous on its upper surface ; the small species C. contract 'its (ilarsh), 

 is also said to have done very great damage to young turnips by punctur- 

 ing and destroying the young leaves in much the same fashion as the 

 turnip-tiea (Phyllotreta^nemorum) ; I have not, however, heard of its 

 ever having proved very injurious of late years. 



There are thirty-seven British species, some of which are very closely 

 allied ; it is, however, as a rule, not difficult to distinguish fresh speci- 

 mens, but the scales are very easily rubbed and the identification of such 

 specimens is of course harder in a large genus than in a small one ; in 

 one or two cases, e.g. C. marginatuf, C.punctiger and C. rotundatvt, the 



