THE PEA-WEEVIL. 61 



cases, and are therefore unable to fly. They walk slowly, 

 and being of a timid nature, and without the means of de- 

 fence, when alarmed they turn back their antennae under 

 the snout, fold up their legs, and fall from the plants on 

 which they live. They make use of their snouts not only 

 in feeding, but in boring holes, into which they afterwards 

 drop their eggs. 



The young of these snout-beetles are mostly short fleshy 

 grubs, of a whitish color, and without legs. The covering of 

 their heads is a hard shell, and the rings of their bodies are 

 very convex or hunched, by both of which characters they 

 are easily distinguished from the maggots of flies. Their 

 jaws are strong and horny, and with them they gnaw those 

 parts of plants which serve for their food. It is in the grub 

 state that weevils are most injurious to vegetation. Some 

 of them bore into and spoil fruits, grain, and seeds ; some 

 attack the leaves and stems of plants, causing them to swell 

 and become cankered ; while others penetrate into the solid 

 wood, interrupt the course of the sap, and occasion the 

 branch above the seat of attack to wither and die. Most 

 of these grubs are transformed within the vegetable sub- 

 stances upon which they have lived ; some, however, when 

 fully grown, go into the ground, where they are changed 

 to pupae, and afterwards to beetles. 



In the spring of the year, we often find among seed- 

 peas many that have holes in them ; and, if the peas have 

 not been exposed to the light and air, we see a little in- 

 sect peeping out of each of these holes, and waiting appar- 

 ently for an opportunity to come forth and make its escape. 

 If we turn out the creature from its cell, we perceive it to 

 be a small oval beetle, rather more than one tenth of an 

 inch long, of a rusty black color, with a white spot on the 

 hinder part of the thorax, four or five white dots behind 

 the middle of each wing-cover, and a white spot shaped like 

 the letter T on the exposed extremity of the body. This 

 little insect is the Bruchus Pisi of Linnaeus (Fig. 31), the 



