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NOTE ON THE ENTOMOPHILOUS NATUKE OF 
ENGEPHALABTOS. 
By E. Maeloth. 
(Received and Read September 17, 1913.) 
The recently published part of the Transactions of the Society 
(vol. iii., p. 259) contains a paper by Dr. G. Rattray entitled Note on the 
Pollination of some South African Cycads." From observations carried 
out for a number of years Dr. Rattray has come to the conclusion that 
the cones of both sexes of Encephalartos Altensteinii and E. villosus are 
visited by a certain weevil, and that consequently the pollination of these 
species depends upon the presence of this insect. The insect is referred 
to as a curculionid beetle of the genus Phloeophagus, but the description 
of the insect shows that it does not belong to the genus Phloeophagus, 
nor even to that tribe (Cossininae) of the Curculionidae, but that it is 
Antliarrhinus zamiae, a beetle collected for the first time by Thunberg in the 
year 1773 from the seeds of E. caffer. Various other collectors have 
from time to time observed this beetle in the seeds of several species of 
Encephalartos, and also Rattray states : " Long before I was aware that 
Phloeophagus (should read Antliarrhinus) visited the staminate cones of 
E. Altensteinii I knew that it was hardly possible to find a mature ovulate 
cone in which a large percentage of the ovules were not parasitized by the 
same insect." And in another passage he states : " The most abundant 
species (of beetles) has a much-depressed body of dark, shining brown 
colour, and the female is furnished with a long rostrum." 
As long as the insect observed in such numbers on the pollinating 
cones of E. Altensteinii and E. villosus was looked upon as a member of 
the fairly large and widely distributed genus Phloephagus, the almost 
regular occurrence of the Antliarrhinus (a member of a small isolated tribe 
that occurs, as far as known, only in eastern Cape Colony) within the 
seeds of these plants, had to be considered merely as a pest. Now, on 
the other hand, it is obvious that the Antliarrhinus is the chief agent for 
the transport of the pollen, and although it destroys a large number 
