The Cionus 
ploited by the Cionus is not the botanists’ 
Verbascum thapsus at all, but quite another 
plant, of wholly different character, Ver- 
bascum sinuatum. A lover of the way-side, 
having no fear of the ungrateful soil and the 
white dust, the scallop-leaved mullein is a 
southern plant which spreads over the ground 
a rosette of broad, fluffy leaves, the edges of 
which are gashed with deep, wavy incisions. 
Its flower-stalk is divided into a number of 
twigs bearing yellow blossoms whose stam- 
inal filaments are bearded with violet hairs. 
At the end of May, let us open the um- 
brella, the collector’s chief engine of the 
chase, underneath the plant. A few blows 
of a walking-stick on the chandelier ablaze 
with yellow flowers will bring down a sort 
of hail. This is our friend the Cionus, a 
roundish little creature, huddled into a glob- 
ule on its short legs. Its costume is not lack- 
ing in elegance and consists of a scaly jacket 
flecked with black specks on an ash-grey back- 
ground. The insect is distinguished above 
all by two large tufts of black velvet, one on 
its back and the other at the lower extremity 
of the wing-case. No other Weevil of our 
country-side wears the like. The rostrum is 
309 
