CHAPTER VII. 



Insects affecting stored grain of Wfieat. 



THE WEEVIL. Description of the Insect, 242. Female lays her eggs in Stored 

 "Wheat, 242. Presence of insect, how detected, 243. Habits of the "Weevil, 

 244. Mode of destroying, ZM-.TJie Wolf or Little Grain Moth, 245. Habits 

 of the Insect, 246, 247. Illustration of the Wolf, Moth and Caterpillar, 247. 

 Remedial measures, 248. The Angumois Moth, 249. Moth and caterpillar, 250- 

 Summer and autumn brood, 252. Remedial measures, 253. 



The Weevil (Calandra granaria.) 



242. A snout-beetle, about one-eighth of an inch in length, 

 with a slender body of a dull reddish brown colour, furrowed 

 wing cases and long punctured thorax. A single pair of these 

 insects may produce six thousand descendants in a year. They 

 are destructive to stored grain in both the perfect and larva state. 

 The female lays her eggs in wheat in the granary. The young 

 maggots burrow into the grain and consume its contents, leaving 

 only the husk. Their transformations are perfected within the 

 husks they have chambered out in the larva state, and so secretly 

 are their operations conducted, that it is impossible to detect thei 

 operations by simple^inspection of a heap of wheat. 



243. The presence of these insects may be detected by the 

 weight of the grains. On throwing a handful into a bucket of 

 water the diseased grains will float. After the female has, by 

 means of her rostrum or beak, deposited an egg in the grain, she 

 covers it up with a sort of glue of the same colour as the husk, 

 hence the difficulty of detecting the presence of this depreda- 

 tor in the granary during the time when it is in the larva state. 



244. On the approach of cold weather the weevils retire from 

 the heaps of wheat, and seek shelter in crevices and cracks of 



