BEETLES. 335 



chidffl effect a similar result by attacking the seeds, and the Chrysomelidaa by 

 destroying the leaves." 



One of the most widely known species of Bruohidae is IBruchns pisi, the pearweevil, 

 found both in Europe and in America. This beetle is about 0.20 of an inch long and 

 0.12 of an inch wide, is dark brown with a few white spots on the elytra and a slightly 

 more prominent white spot just in front of the white scutellum. The tip of the abdo- 

 men, which projects beyond the apices of the elytra bears a T-sha23ed white mark. 

 The females fasten their lemon-yellow, sub-cylindrical eggs with a gummy secretion 

 upon the outer surface of the newly formed pod of the pea. The white, footless 

 larvsB, when they hatch, bore through the pod into the developing seed within, where 

 they continue to grow with the pea itself. In eating green peas we eat, oftentimes, 

 large numbers of these young larvee, a very minute dot on the surface of a pea being 

 the only external evidence of the presence of a weevil larva within. The jjeas that 

 are collected one season for next year's seed often contain a large number of these 

 insects, which escape as iraagos the next spring, when the peas are planted, and 

 deposit eggs for a succeeding generation. United effort on the part of those who cul- 

 tivate peas would do much to lessen the number and destructiveness of these weevils. 

 Seed peas should be kept in bags made of tightly woven cloth from which the weevils 

 cannot escape, and the beetles should be killed before the peas are planted by immers- 

 ing the bags for a moment in hot water, which process will not impair the germinating 

 power of the seeds ; or weevils may be destroyed by putting seed peas into a close box 

 and adding a little carbon disulphide. On account of the explosiveness of the vapor 

 of carbon disulphide this mode of treatment should be used only in the absence of fire 

 or lighted lamps. Some persons keep seed peas, after they have dried sufficiently to 

 prevent moulding, in close vessels for two years, at the end of which time the peas will 

 have lost very little of their germinative vitality, while the weevils will have emerged 

 and died during the fii-st year. Peas sown late in the season are not attacked by 

 these weevils, because they blossonr after the time during which these insects ovi- 

 posit. The Baltimore oriole {Icterus daltimore) splits open the pods of peas to get 

 at the larvae of the pea-weevil, and the crow-blackbird (Quiscahcs purpureus) is said 

 to eat the images in the spring, but these weevils mostly escape the attention of other 

 birds. 



Bruchus fabcB is another common American species, much smaller than H. pisi., 

 which attacks different kinds of beans, several beetles sometimes emerging from a 

 single bean, while each S. pisi usually occupies a pea by itself. In Europe two similar 

 species, S. granarius and J3. rujimanus, are destructive both to beans and to peas. 



Differing from Bruchus in having the anterior coxaj separated by the presternum 

 are the species of Caryohorus. C. arthriticus is an ashy-brown species, about 0.4 of 

 an inch long, from the southern United States, where its larvse develop in the seeds of 

 the palmetto (iSabal jJalmetto). 



The AnthribidjE are weevils, characterized, according to Dr. J. L. Le Conte, by 

 having the abdomen of the male and female alike ; i. e., composed of the same number 

 of segments, the elytra with a distinct lateral fold on the inner surface, a vertical 

 pygidium, — or distal end of the abdomen, — and straight antennae. 



Cratoparis lunatus, the commonest species of Anthribidae'in the eastern United 

 States, is about 0.3 of an inch long ; its ground color is dark brown ; the upper 

 half of the head and forward part of the prothorax are cream-white, aind an irregular 

 spot near the middle of each elytron is of the same color ; the rest of the insect is 



