Animal Life 409 
scales, and has a conspicuous (V-shaped or transverse whitish marking on its wing-cases 
behind the middle. The life-history of these insects is, briefly, as follows:—Whilst the 
nut is young the female weevil eats a hole quite through to the middle of it. This 
she has no difficulty im accomplishing, because her jaws are placed at the tip of her 
long beak; and, lest the pair of feelers which she carries near the middle of the latter 
should be in the way whilst she is engaged in this and similar operations, they are 
made to double in half and fit in a paw of grooves on the lower side of the basal half 
of the beak. In the hole thus made she lays an egg, from which, in due course, a 
tiny maggot hatches out and proceeds to consume the kernel of the nut. The maggot, 
when full-fed, changes to a pupa or chrysalis under the surface of the ground, and, in 
order to get there, eats its way out through the nutshell, leaving a clean-cut roundish 
hole of the kind shown in our illustration. 
Sometimes this happens whilst the nut is still on the bush, but more frequently it 
does not occur until after the nut has fallen. When the maggot has assumed the 
chrysalis state it resembles the perfect beetle in form, but is whitish in colour and 
quite incapable of movement, the limbs being doubled up and packed close to the body. 
In the early summer the beetle leaves the pupa-case and makes its way to the surface 
of the ground, and thence to the tree or bush which is in due course destined to 
become the food-plant of its offsprmg. When at liberty these beetles display an 
amount of activity which seems quite out of keeping with their short squat bodies 
and long sprawling legs. In the sunshine they run very rapidly, and readily take flight. 
Their foothold, too, as indicated by their widened and hooked feet, is so good that it 
requires a comparatively large amount of force to dislodge them from an object they 
may happen to be traversing. 
THE MOTTLED NUT-WEEVIL. THE BANDED NUT-WEEVIL. 
(Six times natural size.) (Nine times natural size.) 
