No- 1. ] Miscelldiieons NoI.ex. 15 



Ciilcutta, but an attempt will be made to procure it from Europe. 

 In tlie meantime it may be noticed that the seeds of almost all 

 leii^nminous plants are subject to tlie attack of Biuchidse beetles belonging- 

 to some one of the numerous species of this group of insects. The 

 beetle generally lays its eggs in the immature pod, and the larvse, which 

 are little white legless grubs, tunnel into the seed where they pass their 

 lives, finally transforming into motionless pupse from which the beetles 

 emerge ready to copulate and lay eggs of their own. 



Fostsciipt — A copy of Elditt's paper has since been procured. Elditt 

 found the insect, in the three stages of larva, pupse, and imago, in pods of 

 Cassia fistula (the Indian Laburnum) which he obtained from apothe- 

 caries' shops in Konigsberg. After carefully describing the insect in its 

 various stages, Elditt gives an interesting account of the parts of its 

 life history he was able to ascertain. With regard to the eg^ laying he 

 was not able to make any observations but concluded the insect was 

 likely to have the same habits as the common Brnchns pisi. It would 

 therefore lay its e<.'gs in the pods before they reached maturity, and the 

 beetle would be a native of the same country as the tree. Upon the 

 whole he thought that the insect was likely to be a native of the East 

 Indies. He found that the larvae made its way through the pod and 

 tunnelled directly into the seed ] a seed was only big enough to afPord 

 nourishment for one grub, and Elditt found that none of the seeds were 

 attacked by more than one grub, though he was unable to explain how 

 this came about. Each seed was enclosed in a chamber with partitions of 

 the shell separating it from the seed on either side of it, and the grub 

 seemed in no case either to have attacked a seed that was already ten- 

 anted, or to have tunnelled through the partition walls of the chamber 

 to enable it to pass from a tenajited seed to one as yet unoccupied. 

 When full fed the grub left the seed and spun a close matted cocoon for 

 itself inside the pod. The beetle, after emerging from the pupal skin, 

 rested a considerable time before cutting its way through the cocoon 

 and the wall of the pod, both of which have to be perforated before it 

 can effect its escape. Elditt supposed this period of rest to be a natural 

 feature in the development, serving to give the integument of the beetle 

 time to harden, but it seems more likely that it was a mere accident due 

 to the fall of temperature owing to transporting the insect from a tropi- 

 cal climate into a temperate one. The time passed by the insect in its 

 various stages was not observed. From the paucity of the specimens 

 that he was able to procure, and from the absence of complaint on the 

 subject amongst the druggists he consulted, Elditt concluded that the 

 injury done by the insect to Cassia pods is insignificant. 'Ihe figure 

 shows the various stages of the insect, also much enlarged diagrams of 

 the antenna and one of the legs of the imago. The size of the cnature 

 is indicated by hair lines. 



