Queries and Answers. 477 



winter quarters preparatory to their usual change, and that some of them 

 died without forming a chrysalis, but throwing out a silky substance round 

 them, which was shortly after filled with a number of minute eggs. I kept a 

 chrysalis, and also some of those eggs, in a box till the next summer, when 

 the former produced a white butterfly with black spots on its wings, and the 

 latter produced from every egg a small dark brown fiy. I cannot suppose a 

 butterfly to be the parent of a very different insect, and therefore shall be 

 obliged if any of your numerous correspondents will favour me with an 

 explanation of this, I am. Sir, &c. — Thomas Morgan. Southampton, 

 June 21. 1830. 



Two Curculios. — I send two insects which appear to me to belong to the 

 Curculio, and beg for information as to the real name, and the manner and 

 time of undergoing the different transformations. I took them off" some 

 beans in my garden ; but they appear to me to be the same insects that I 

 have observed on beans, peas, tares, and even clover, ever since the dry 

 year of 1826, when they did much mischief. They are most easily found 

 in a warm sunny day, but are apt to be alarmed, and take shelter under small 

 clods ; and they are found very plentifully upon strong soils when the clods 

 are removed. Is it the larvae of this insect which we sometimes find feeding 

 upon the pea when the husk is opened ? I see Mr. Rennie says the larvae 

 of some of these species produce the anbury on the turnips and the knots 

 on the roots of cabbage. (Insect Architecture y Library of Entertaining Know- 

 ledge, p. 389.) — J. a Farmer. May 29. 1830. 



A Grub injurious to Oats. — Will any of your numerous correspondents 

 give some detailed information respecting the grub which is so very inju- 

 rious to our oats ; of how many species of the Tipula the larvae are injurious, 

 by what names they are called ; the distinction between grub and wire- 

 worm ; at what time the egg is laid, the larva hatched, and when it is found 

 as the chrysalis and perfect insect ? An answer may lead to some practical 

 results. — Id. 



Cdrabus crepitans and C. nemordlis. — I was fortunate enough last autumn 

 to procure a specimen of Carabus crepitans Lin. and Latreille. The explo- 

 sions which this insect is enabled to make, when disturbed or irritated, are 

 very distinctly audible, even at a little distance, but the accounts we have of 

 them are greatly exaggerated. The sound emitted by this specimen was 

 something between a chirp and the report of a small piece of artillery, with 

 which we were wont to amuse ourselves " in days gone by," commonly 

 called a " potato gun ; " but I must say I could not perceive the slightest 

 appearance of smoke, by which some have alleged the explosion is accom- 

 panied j nor were our olfactory nerves gratified by any of those fetid 

 odours, the power of emitting which has been ascribed to this insect by 

 some naturalists. Of the same genus I also took in the garden the C. 

 nemoralis Linn, and Lat., which, so far as I know, has never been described 

 as a British insect. Latreille describes it as a native of Europe. The body 

 is black; thorax with violet-coloured margins; elytra, obscure copper- 

 coloured, rugose, and having hollow dots in a triple series. May I beg the 

 favour of any of your entomological correspondents to inform us whether 

 they have met with this species in Britain ? I am, Sir, &c. — A. L. A. 

 Alnwick, April 7. 1830. 



Pterostichus parumpunctdtus. — The insect described by T. H. (p. 50.), a 

 specimen of which he has been so obliging as to forward to me, is, I have 

 little'doubt, the Pterostichus parumpunctatus of Dejean. It is fortunate 

 you have given so good a figure of the insect whose curious economy is so 

 interestingly detailed by T. H., as it enables us to correct an error into 

 which he has fallen respecting its name. The Proctotrupidae of Latreille 

 have abdomens more or less peduncled, the superior wings have very few 

 nervures, and no discoidal cells, and the inferior not more than one nervure. 

 Platygaster, to which, probably, Linnaeus's /chneumon ovuldrum is nearly 



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