Kew : Weevil- Cocoons of the Figworts. 



happens that the spikes not only exhibit buds, flowers, and seed- 

 vessels at the same time, but also carry the three stages of the 

 insect — larva, pupa (enclosed in the cocoon), and imago or 

 perfect-insect. This was the case with a spike of Scrophularia 

 aquatica gathered by Mr. Carter in Hubbard's Valley, and of 

 which he has sent me a photograph. At the top of the spike 

 are buds and open flowers, and lower down well-formed seed- 

 vessels ; and in addition to four cocoons the photograph shows 

 two larvae and two imagines. The cocoon is a small, rounded 

 oval, prolately spheroid structure, like a little inflated bladder, 



Part of a Figwort flower-head, with be described as yellowish- or 



seed-vessels and cocoons of C tonus . , , 



goose-skin points ; but these are not a conspicuous feature. 

 De Geer, who was perhaps the first to describe the cocoons of 

 this particular species, compares them to little bladders, and 

 remarks that, though thin, they are strong, elastic, and a little 

 transparent. Several writers have remarked, further, that they 

 are wonderfully like the seed-vessels of the Scrophularia among 

 which they are often placed ; though perfectly exposed, says 

 Butler, they are yet beautifully concealed by this resemblance to 

 the fruitage of the Figwort. The likeness is certainly striking ; 

 but, as it seems to the writer, authors have, unintentionally of 

 course, somewhat exaggerated it. As regards the manner in 

 which the cocoons are made, Reaumur, who observed a species on 

 Mullein, though aware that the cocoon consisted of a membrane 

 rather than of threads, believed that he had seen in the larva an 

 oral spinneret ; but he was certainly mistaken. De Geer, though 

 mistaken in thinking* that some silk might enter into the cocoon, 

 maintained that it was composed of the slimy matter of the body 

 of the larva ; and this remark, it is now known, well expresses 

 the nature of the structure. Thus the cocoon of domes cannot 



I 



measuring about a fifth of an 

 inch in the longest direction, 

 and composed of a thin, con- 

 tinuous parchment-like mem- 

 brane. It is attached to the 

 plant by so small a part that 

 its general outline is hardly 

 interfered with ; and in colour 

 it is somewhat like parchment, 

 but darker, and may perhaps 



scrophularise. After Butler, Knowledge, 

 XVI. (1893), p. 227. (Reproduced by per- 

 mission of the proprietors of 'Knowledge.') 



olive-brown. As stated by 

 Osborne, it is sparsely covered 

 in the middle region with raised 



Naturalist, 



