226 



RllV.NClIOPHORA.- 



-INSECTS.- 



-Bkuchus. 



PSEUDO-TETRAMEKA. 



In these the tarsi are apparently four-jointed, although 

 on examination a fifth will be discovered. 



RHYNCHOFHORA {Snouted Beetles). 



A vast set of insects, upwards of ten thousand of 

 which have been described. 



Mr. Wollaston has published an interesting paper* 

 on the sounds made by some of the CurculionidK. He 

 noticed tliis habit first when in Teneriffe in a species 

 of Acalles, and thus narrates it : — "I had been accus- 

 tomed to find such a number of insects in the dead 

 branches of the various Euphorbias, that my attendant 

 also had discovered, from time to time, the locus quo 

 of many a rarity by imitating my method of research ; 

 and, to use his own expressions, he was about in tliis 

 instance to throw away these rotten stems as wortli- 

 less, when he was arrested by a loud grating or almost 

 chirping noise, as of many creatures in concert; and 

 on looking closer for the mysterious cause, he detected 

 a specimen of Acalles, from which it was quite evident 

 that a portion of the noise proceeded (.)n shaking 

 the hollow stem so as to arouse its inmates, and put- 

 ting his ear alongside it, the whole plant appeared 

 musical, as though enchanted ; and it was evident to 

 him, therefore, that there were more of the performers 

 within — a conjecture which proved to be correct ; for 

 on breaking open the branches he captured nearly a 

 dozen of them." 



Mr. Wollaston kept three of these alive for several 

 weeks, and as long as they lived it was a constant source 

 of amusement to Iiim to make these creatures stridulate 

 or " sing." It was long before he asceitained how the 

 noise was produced, as they would often stridulate 

 when lying on their sides, with their limbs closely 

 retracted and their head applied to their chest. At 

 length he perceived a minute and rapid vibration of 

 the apical segment of the abdomen, so rapid that to 

 the unassisted vision it was scarcely appreciable. He 

 dissected specimens of the Acalles arrjillosus and the 

 Acalles neptunus, and found in this part the structure 

 by which the insects produce the sound. 



Section I.— ORTHOCERATA. 



With all the joints of the antennse more or less 

 similar. 



Familt^BRUCHIDjE. 



The family BrwdhiDjE contains many small insects, 

 which live in the seeds of leguminous plants ; and 

 when they abound, as they sometimes do, very great 

 is the extent of their depredations. The body of the 

 perfect insect is oval and convex ; the head is bent 



• Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist., 3rd ser., vol. vi. p. 14; 

 July, 18G0. 



downwards, so that the wide beak rests on the breast 

 when the insect is not engaged in eating ; the antennfe 

 are not very long, and are serrated on the inside ; the 

 elytra do not cover the abdomen ; the femora of the 

 hind legs are very thick, and are often toothed on the 

 under side. One species attacks the coffee, and, like 

 most of the tribe, is named after the plant on which it is 

 found. The Bruchus pisi, the insect figured (117), is 



Fife'. 117. 



Fig. 118. 



Unuhus l)isi. 



more common in the United States than it is here. It 

 is called there, according to Melsheimer, the Pea-fiy 

 (Cat, p. 12). The figures above (118) show two 

 peas and a bean attacked by Brucliiis ; the larva 

 represented much magnified. We borrow Dr. Harris' 

 account of its ravages on the pea: — "Few persons while 

 indulging in the luxury of early green pease are aware 

 how many insects they unconsciously swallow. When 

 the pods are carefully examined, small discoloured spots 

 may be seen ujion them, each one corresponding to a 

 similar spot on the opposite pea. If this spot on the 

 pea be opened, a minute whitish grub destitute of feet 

 will be found therein. It is the weevil in its larva form, 

 which lives upon the marrow of the pea, and arrives at 

 its full size by the time that the pea becomes dry. This 

 larva or grub then bores a round hole from the hollow 

 of the pea quite to the hull, but leaves the latter, and 

 generally the germ of the future sprout, untouched. 

 Hence these peas will frequently sprout and grow 

 when planted. The grub is changed to a pupa within 

 its hole in the pea in the autumn, and before the spring 

 casts its skin again, becomes a beetle, and gnaws a hole 

 through the thin hull in order to make its escape into 

 the air, which frequently does not happen before the 

 peas are planted for an early crop. After the peas 

 have flowered, and while the pods are young and ten- 

 der, and the peas within them are just beginning to 

 swell, the beetles gather upon them and deposit their 

 tiny eggs singly in the punctures or wounds which they 

 make upon the surface of the pods. This is done 

 mostly during the night or in cloudy weather. Tlie 

 grubs, as soon as they are hatched, penetrate the pod 

 and bury themselves in the opposite peas; and the 

 holes through which they pass into the seeds are so 



