HAZEL NUT. (Natural size.) THE SPOTTED NUT-WEEVIL 
Showing the hole through which the grub of the Nut-Weevil 
has made its exit. 
(Six times natural size.) 
SOME BRITISH NUT-=WEEVILS. 
By JAMES HDWARDS, F.E.S. 
N cracking a hazel nut, whether it be the wild product of our woods and hedgerows 
or the more ciyilised filbert, one not unfrequently finds in the inside the partly- 
consumed kernel and a short, fat, yellowish-white maggot with a brown head and no 
legs. Despite the unattractive appearance of this seemingly helpless object, its 
history is not without interest, for it will, im the ordinary course of events, one day 
change to a full-grown beetle—a Nut-Weevil. We have in this country several kinds 
of nut-weevils, so-called on account of their general resemblance to the Mottled Nut- 
Weevil, which may be regarded as the nut-weevil proper; and three of the more 
frequent of these kinds have been selected for our illustrations. The latter represent 
the beetles at six and nine times their natural size respectively. With the majority 
of our native insects 1t is necessary, Im order to get a correct idea of thei form, 
to view them through a lens of some kind; an inexpensive pocket-lens is m most 
cases amply sufficient. It is one of the many charms of photography that it enables 
us to represent accurately the appearance of these small objects when viewed with a 
magnifying-glass. The Spotted Nut-Weevil is perhaps the commonest of all the Iinds 
found in this country; it occurs on hazel-bushes, both wild and cultivated. In colour 
it is dark yellow-brown, with somewhat roundish pale spots on the wing-cases. The: 
Mottled Nut-Weevil, which is of a reddish yellow-brown, mottled on the wing-cases 
with a paler tint of the same colour, is found not uncommonly on oak trees; its grub 
lives in acorns. The Banded Nut-Weevil also lives on oaks; it is considerably smaller 
than the two preceding, and is black, more or less sparimgly clothed with whitish-grey 
408 
