230 



Calandra.- 



-INSECTS.- 



-SCOLYTID-E. 



lower part of the leaf by means of the spines on the 

 liiud legs. The cut is copied by Mr. HoLiies from 

 Sturm's catalogue. 



Tin-liy'>|.i;8 I.ec'Titei. 



Tlie group Cuhindrii/ir coiilaiMS some of the largest, 

 liliijncophwus colossus, R. loiti/himuus, and some of 

 the smallest of the weevils (Silo/ilultis yraiuiriits), &c. 



n/iyucophorus palmarum.* — This beetle is of a dark 

 black ; the elytra have five long and a few shorter 

 lateral striae. The podex is triangular, and fringed 

 with hairs ; the beak of the male is furnished with a 

 longitudinal brush. The larva is short, fat, and rusty 

 yellow ; the bead is brown, as are spots on the thorax 

 and flattened tail. Such is the description of Guilding. 

 This large insect is found in various parts of the 

 tropics of the New World. Its larva perforates dead or 

 injured palms, and hence the specific name of the per- 

 fect insect is derived. It is chiefly the Gru-gru {Cocas 

 fusifuriuis], a palm of the same genus as the Coco, 

 which it drills. The larva also occasionally attacks 

 the sugar-cane. 



Although a small insect, yet none of its tribe is more 

 destructive than the Corn Weevil [Sitophilus yrunarius) 

 a little snouted beetle of a brownish-red colour, with 

 furrowed elytra shorter than the body. At times vast 

 quantities of corn and other grain are destroyed by this 

 weevil, which attack these seeds when stored in grana- 

 ries and often occasion very serious damage, as they 

 devour grain both in the grub state and as beetles. It 

 is one of the most prolific of coleopterous insects, if the 

 report is true that a pair of these weevils may produce 

 six thousand in one year. If grain be kept cool and 

 frequently moved, it is not liable to being attacked, for 

 it is when the corn is housed that the female deposits 

 her eggs in it ; the young maggots as soon as hatched 

 burrow into the grain, each maggot selecting a different 

 seed, the inside of which it devours ; and having under- 

 gone their various transformations uo time is lost in 

 depositing eggs for another brood. 



Rice is attacked by another species allied to the corn 

 weevil, but ratlier smaller, and having two red sjjots 

 on each elytron. 



The Borer-weevil {Calandra sacc/iari) an insect 

 which commits great ravages on the crops of sugar- 

 cane in Jamaica, is said to have been introduced into 

 tliat island from Tahiti in 1797. Mr. King of Port- 

 1 ind has described this insect and its transformations. 

 The egg is the size of a small bead, and is partially 

 transparent; the female deposits this within the suc- 

 culent vessels of the cane, where the adiiering footstalk 



• Curculio ijalniarum — Lin. ; Calaudra pahuaruin — Fabr. 



of the leaf keeps the decayed foliage hanging to the 

 germinating joint. The egg is hatched when the eye 

 or growing bud begins to show the active influences of 

 both heat and moisture. The maggot, as soon as 

 batched, worms its way from the verge of the foot- 

 stalk into the very body of the succulent and vegetat- 

 ing shoot, where it increases in dimensions. It then 

 occupies the centre of the jjlant, making its way 

 u])wards through the growing cane, but remaining 

 within the sweet and perfected joints, and never 

 ascending to the greener tops to devour tlie germ and 

 destroy vegetation. It entirely exhausts the saccharine 

 fluid in which it has lodged, filling the excavation it 

 makes with an excrementitious deposit extremely 

 injurious to the cane liquor from the mill; deteiiorating 

 it rapidly if it remain untempered while running into 

 the pans. When the canes are cut the maggot has 

 passed into the pupa state. The pupa is inclosed in a 

 cocoon, which is a shroud of decayed trash curiously 

 foimed by the maggot. The shreds of which this 

 cocoon is formed are plaited and wound togetlier, and 

 so closely fastened at the ends that the air is excluded. 

 It continues in this state only for a short time. From 

 this comes out the snouted beetle, striped yellow and 

 brown. 



Of the group Cossonidcn there are eight British 

 species — Mcsttes Tardii (an Irish and South of Eng- 

 land insect named after Mr. Tardy), Phlaophagus, 

 Rhyncolits, and PenUirtltrum. 



This ends the vast army of Weevils with its sixteen 

 thousand known species. 



Family— SCOLYTID^ (Tree-Janes). 



Connecting the Rhynchophora, through Cossonus and 

 Rhyncholup, we come to the Scolytid^, also called 

 Hylesinid-e, small beetles of a brown or rust coloui', 

 somewhat cylindrical in form, and rounded both in 

 front and behind. I would propose for them the name 

 of Tree-bane, from the damage many of them do to 

 trees. The grubs devour the soft inner parts of the 



Fig. 126. 



Scolytus destructor. 



bark, which they loosen in this way from the wood ; 

 and trees attacked by them soon languish and decay. 

 Tlie elms in the neighbourhood of London and Paris 

 have been much destroyed \>y the Scolytus destrtictvr, 

 an insect of this family (fig. 12G). In one of the mining 



