41 



This curculio is well known as an injurious enemy to cabbage and 

 other cruciferous crops and has received mention as such in the 

 Annual Report of this Department for 1889 by Miss M. E. Murtfeldt 

 (pp. 136. 137), as well as elsewhere, but has not hitherto been figured 

 in Departmental publications, and considerable has been learned by 

 the writer that has not previously been recorded. 



The prediction made by Miss Murtfeldt, who stated ten years ago 

 that this insect gave promise of becoming a general and very consider- 

 able pest to our market gardeners, has hardly been realized to date, 

 notwithstanding its present very general establishment throughout the 

 Upper Austral area, as well as adjacent regions in the United States 

 and Canada, and in spite of evidence that the species has been estab- 

 lished in this country at least since 1873, as will presently be shown. 



THE SPECIES IDENTIFIED. 



Attention must be called to the unfortunate determination of the 

 species in different publications, and an endeavor will be made to 

 straighten out this difficulty. 



According to Dr. William G. Dietz, the cabbage curculio of this 

 country is not the true rapce of Gyllenhal, but a native American 

 species and undescribed until 1896, when he gave it the name of C. 

 affiuentus in his revision of the Ceutorhynchini inhabiting North 

 America (Trans. Amer. Entom. Soc, Yol. XXIII, p. 421). He says: 

 "This species, erroneously known in our lists and collections as rapce 

 Gyll., bears only a superficial resemblance to its European congener 

 while differing in most important structural characters." He then 

 specifies the points of difference, emphasizing more especially the 

 unarmed femora and claws of C. rapce. In the course of the arrange- 

 ment of the Ceutorhynchini of the national collection, Mr. Schwarz 

 gave this matter some study and has satined himself, as has also the 

 writer, that Dr. Dietz's conclusions were erroneous. In Gyllenhal's 

 original description of C. rapce, published in 1837 (Schoenherr's Gen. 

 et Spec. Curculionidum, Vol. IV, p. 547), there occurs the following: 

 " femoribus pa/rum crassis, subtus dente mediocri armatis" and in 

 Thomson's description of the same species, published in 1865 (Skandi- 

 naviens Coleoptera, Vol. VII, p. 271), that writer says " Femora denti- 

 cvlo armata. Unguiouli tarsorum hiftdi" In Bedel's synopsis of spe- 

 cies of Ceutorhynchus (Faune des Coleopteres du bassin de la Seine, 

 1885, Vol. VI, pp. 163-171) the toothed nature of the femora and the 

 claws of C. rapce are also referred to. 



Among the European material which we have had for the study of 

 the genus Ceutorhynchus is a specimen identified by a European 

 authority as rapce, which is manifestly an incorrect determination, 

 since the femora are mutic and the claws simple. It is possible that 



