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peas ' with requests that the senders be informed whether their's was the new pest 

 or the old one. The boxes containing the peas — which were all infested with the com- 

 mon weevil Bruchus pisi — were placed in a room which is somewhat over-supplied with 

 steam pipes, and in which the temperature occasionally rites above 90 degrees. After a 

 day or two in this room the regular transformation of the beetles from the pupa to the 

 perfect state took place. On opening the boxes, they were found alive with weevils 

 which had abandoned the holes in the peas, and were looking around for young pea pods 

 in which to lay their eggs. In this lies the lesson. It is a pretty well settled fact in 

 entomology that the function of egg-laying is not a voluntary one on the part of the 

 female insect. Given the requisite temperature, and the process of egg-laying must go 

 on whether the eggs be fertilized or not, or whether there be a proper place on which to 

 lay them or not . It follows, almost to a certainty, that the pea weevil can be annihilated 

 in a very simple manner. In the natural state the eggs of the weevil are laid on the 

 outside of the young pea pods. The larva hatch out and burrow through the pods into 

 the peas, one larva to each pea. Once there, they feed till they have attained their full 

 growth, when they go into the pupa or chrysalis state. In the latter state they remain 

 all the fall and winter. In the spring the weevilly peas are sown with the insect still in 

 the pupa state. It remains underground till the soil has become warm, and then it 

 changes to the perfect state, comes forth, and proceeds to perpetuate the species as before. 

 Now, it appears from what happened to our consignments of pea bugs that the insects can 

 be easily inveigled out of their holes during the winter when there are no green pea-pods 

 for them to lay upon. Once out of the pupa state, it cannot go back again. If, then, 

 farmers will during the winter place their seed peas in a warm room for a few days, the 

 weevils may be brought out of their holes and killed, or left to die." 



Bruchidae from their habits are insects very liable to be carried from one country to 

 another in the seeds used alike for food by man and weevil, and if the climate and food 

 found in their new quarters be at all favourable, they quickly make themselves at home 

 therein. As an example of the way in which such insects are imported it may be men- 

 tioned, that eight species were collected among foreign exhibits at the Centennial Exhi- 

 bition. 



The second division of the weevils is an enormous one, containing many hundred genera 

 and many thousand species — the number of the latter named and described being 10,000 

 or more — while the list is being lengthened continually by the discovery of new ones, of 

 which there must remain a great number, for a large proportion of the species are so small 

 and inconspicuous as easily to escape early collectors in countries where many larger and 

 more brilliant coleoptera can be easily obtained. 



According to a recent " Check list of the Coleoptera of America north of Mexico," 

 there are over eight hundred species, of which nearly half have been added within the last 

 seven years. In Great Britain, where numerous collectors have thoroughly worked the 

 ground, about five hundred species are known, and undoubtedly, when our own country 

 has been more exhaustively searched, the Canadian list now numbering but little over one 

 hundred forms, will be enormously swollen. I have obtained in the vicinity of this city 

 over fifty kinds, some of which occur in large numbers. 



Our snout-beetles are all small, many very minute ; the largest is scarcely an inch 

 long, while many are but one-twentieth of an inch. If then we consider the damage in- 

 flicted in this country, we can form some idea of the ravages that are wrought in more 

 tropical countries where the weevils attain to a great size ; compared to these our largest 

 species are as sparrows to turkeys. 



In Java is found an enormous black weevil, called Protocerus colossus, which measures 

 three inches in length and is stout in proportion. With its immense front legs and strong, 

 knobbed snout, it is a formidable looking beetle, and must do great harm to the trees on 

 which it feeds. An allied Brazilian species is called Rhina barbicovnis from its long hairy 

 snout, which gives it a very fierce look. Some foreign weevils are as remarkable for their 

 varied and brilliant colouring as for their size. The most commonly known is perhaps 

 the diamond beetle of Brazil ( Entimus imperialis ) often used as a breast pin or similar 

 ornament. It is a black insect, closely lined with rows of glittering geeen dots, and pre- 

 sents in its perfect state a magnificent appearance. A near relative of this beetle is E % 



