WEEVILS. 



343 



are busily at work, extending the gallery in both dii-ections close to the hard wood, and scooping a 

 surface-groove upon it. In the course of time, and after the deposition of eggs, from fifteen to one 

 hundred in each burrow, the original female, and often the male, dies, their dead bodies remaining in 

 the galleries for years 

 afterwards ; but the per- 

 fect insects of the 

 new generation, which 

 emerge from the pupae 

 at. the ends of the larval 

 burrows in the autumn 

 of the year in which 

 they were first hatched, 

 gnaw a channel of exit, 

 in the following spring, 

 to the surface of the 

 tree, and fly away. H. 

 creimtus, a larger spe- 

 cies, affecting also the 

 ash, prefers living trees, 

 and takes two years to 

 complete its transforma- 

 tions. Another species, 

 Cryphalusbinodulus, at- 

 tacks the aspen, utterly 

 destroying the tree, 

 beginning with the 

 brandies and working 

 downwards ; and Scoly- 

 tits destructor, also com- 

 mon in England, the 

 elm, destroying not only 

 the inner bark, but 

 burrowing half an inch 

 deep into the solid wood. 

 The numerous species 

 of the genus Platypus, 

 and its allies, differ in 

 habits in some particu- 

 lars from the rest of the 

 family ; at least, the 

 English species, P. cy- 

 lindrus, is found to 

 burrow in the solid 

 wood of oaks and 

 beeches. 



The other families 

 of the Khynchophora 

 are the BRENTHID^E, LARIXUS MACVLOSUS. 



ANTHRIBID.E, and BRU- 



CHID^E. The first-mentioned are very elongate, narrow Beetles, with rostrum long and filiform in the 

 females, and shorter and broader in the males, the latter sex being provided also with strong mandibles. 

 Like the Curculionidae, they have no labrurn, or upper lip. They are bark-insects, very numerous and 

 varied in the tropics, and displaying great eccentricities of form, but extremely rare in north temperate 



