40 



INJURIOUS INkSects and fungi. 



[June 1895». 



The Pea :AND j Bean Weevil {SUones lineatus). 



The Pea aucl Bean Weevil, 1. Natural size. 2. Maguifiecl. . . , ; 



The Board of Agriculture have, received complaints of damage 

 done to peas By a weeyil, which feeds upon several leguminoiis 

 plants. This insect is recognised as the Pea and Bean Weevil, 

 to which attention was drawu hj the Board in 189^. , 



Peas and beans are very subject to attacks by this insect, bui 

 the injury is frequently attributed to slugs, because the weevil 

 is not by any means easily seen. It is of a dull colour, and 

 falls to the ground on the least alarm. The weevil itself eats 

 the leaves and young shoots of the pea and bean plants^ and its 

 larv83 devour their I'oots. It is often most troublesome in 

 market gardens and allotment grounds, and in' some years an 

 extensive reduction in the crops of peas and beans has resulted 

 from its attacks. It has been' known also to attack sweet peas 

 in gardens. It sometimes seriously injures red clover in its 

 early stages, and its small white maggots, or larvae, also spoil 

 " second cuts " of clover by eating the roots of the plants and 

 stopping their growth. Trifolium too, suffers considerably, par- 

 ticularly in its early stages, from the attacks of this weevil, 

 although the injury to this crop is generally attributed to slugs 

 ■and other insects, 



^ ' ' ''Dcscrivilon and L^^^ 



The Pea and: Bean Weevil is a quarter of an inch long. Its 

 ground colour is .<iark, but the body is covered with greyish 

 scales, which in some specimens are of a slightly greenish shade. 

 There are, three lines of this grey, or grey-green, hue on the 

 thorax, and many lines on the wing cases. The antennas are of 

 a red colour, v.ery slender, with club terminations. The legs are 

 ferruginous. As Canon Fowler says, The tibiae of the male 

 are curved and armed with a small hook." It is not known 

 where the eggs are placed. Egg-laying, begins in the. early 

 spring. Tlie larvae, or maggots which are white, leg-less, nearly 

 a quarter of an inch long, and somewhat curved, live in the roots 

 of clover, peas, beans, and other leguminous plants, and there 

 change to pupas. 



