called Balaninus nascicus, the specific name being conferred on account of its snout or 

 " nose," which, though no thicker than a bristle, is nearly as long as the body, and carries 

 a pair of long and very delicate antennae. The beetle is a third of an inch long, with an 

 oval body covered with short yellow hairs. The grub lives in the hazel-nut, but leaves it 

 when full grown to transform in the ground. In 1879 the nut crop was large and these 

 beetles were very abundant, but last summer there were bub few nuts and I only observed 

 one weevil. This beetle, according to Fitch, also feeds on hickory nuts, and B. rectus, 

 distinguished by the beak being shorter and straighter, attacks acorns. This genus, I 

 may add, derives its name — Balaninus — from a Greek word signifying acorn. 



Remarkable as our nut weevil is for its long, slender nose, it is far surpassed by an 

 African beetle which has a bristle-like snout fully three times as long as its body, the 

 latter being half an inch in length. 



Cratoparis lunatus is not an injurious weevil, for, unlike the majority of its kind, it 

 forsakes sweet flowers and succulent fruits to feast upon dry fungus, such as grows upon 

 old beech trees. It is about a third of an inch long and of a mottled colour, exactly 

 resembling when disturbed a bit of fungus or moss. 



The members of the small group Brenthidce are easily distinguished from other 

 weevils by their remarkably long bodies, snouts not bent downwards or curved, but 

 stretched straight out in front, and unelbowed antennse. The only Canadian species is 

 Arrhenodes Septentrionis (Hbst.),the larva of which lives in hardwood trees (most frequently 

 oak), not only in dead trees but in living ones. The female is said to bore a hole in the 

 bark with her long snout, and shove into the puncture an egg. The cylindrical, whitish 

 grub bores a round hole through the bark and into the solid wood of the tree. It is a 

 slender worm, an inch or over in length, and little more than one-tenth in diameter ; 

 changing in its burrow to a yellowish white pupa. 



The beetle has a cylindrical body attached to which is an egg-shaped thorax, rounded 

 off where it is joined to the body, and tapering gradually to the head, which is prolonged 

 in a straight snout, hardly as long as the thorax. The snout of the female is very slender, 

 and the jaws at the tip are so small as to be barely visible to the naked eye ; that of the 

 male is much heavier, and the jaws are strong and curved. The antennas of the female are 

 inserted at the base of the rostrum near the eyes, while those of the other sex are set mid- 

 way between the eyes and mouth. The general colour of this beetle is a rich brown ; it 

 is very smooth and glossy, with the exception of the wing-covers, which are striated, punc- 

 tured and marked with irregular, broken, yellow lines. These beetles may be taken in 

 June among oak trees, or more readily in lumber yards among newly sawn oak lumber. 

 I have also taken several which were attracted with other species of weevils to a bright 

 light placed to allure moths. They vary wonderfully in size, the males (an unusual thing 

 with insects) being largest. Ordinary specimens are from four-eighths to five- eighths of 

 an inch long and about one-eighth in diameter, but Fitch mentions one as being only two- 

 eighths long, and I have an enormous male, a giant of his race, measuring over seven- 

 eighths. It is proportionately stout ; the rostrum is very broad and strong, and the jaws 

 large and powerful. It was found last summer in a cleft of a newly fallen butternut tree. 



The Calandridce embrace many highly destructive insects. In the West Indies is 

 found an enormous weevil which injures palm trees and sugar-canes. Its gigantic white 

 grubs are called by the negroes " gru-gru," and by them, as well as by many white people, 

 are considered a very great delicacy, although those not accustomed to such unusual dainties 

 would consider them a very distasteful kind of grub. 



Our northern species are small but still capable of doing immense damage by their 

 united efforts, and the grain weevils have a world-wide notoriety on account of their 

 ravages. Three species of the latter are common in the States, viz : — Calandra oryzce, C. 

 granaria, and C. remote-punctata ; the two last are also found in Canada. C. oryzce — 

 the rice weevil — is supposed to have spread westward from the East Indies with the grain 

 from which it derives its name. Unfortunately, however, it does not confine itself to 

 rice, and at the Philadelphia Exhibition was found to abound in rice, maize, and wheat 

 from all parts of the world. 



With the aid of its relative the granary weevil (0. granaria) — see fig. 34 — it destroys 

 vast quantities of stored grain. Curtis says that no insects in England do more mischief to 



