•120 
Observations on the various Insects 
jectlon of some fluid into the wound when the egg is deposited, 
to form a proper nidus for the embryo young, or it may be the 
eifect of an acid secretion of the maggot. Naturalists are yet 
ignorant of many particulars relating to the history of this beetle, 
for, although the galls are visible upon the turnips from the close 
of summer until the opening of spring, the maggots in all proba- 
bility are not many weeks in arriving at maturity. I have found 
them of all sizes in winter, but never met with one in the pupa 
state; I therefore conclude that, like the Turnip-seed weevil,* 
they eat their way out, and enter the earth to undergo their final 
transformation. 
The maggots are fat and whitish (fig. 18), often of a bright 
flesh-colour, when they live on the swedes, wrinkled, especially 
on the sides: head ochreous : jaws bright nut-brown, the ex- 
tremities black, as well as a minute eye on each side ; when at 
rest and in their cells they generally lie curled up, and are not 
able to extend themselves and walk like the maggots of the 
Turnip-seed beetle, but when forcibly stretched out they are 
about ^ of an inch long. After their metamorphoses in the earth 
a beetle is eventually produced which naturally belongs to the 
Order Coleoptera and the Family Curcuhonid^e. It is 
designated in modern works as the 
6. Curculio (Ceutorhynchus) pleurostigma ; it is also the 
Rhynchcenus sulcicollis of Gyllenhal;| the turnip-gall Vt'eevil. 
It is black and shining; antennae inserted at the middle of the 
rostrum, which is long, slender, curved, and punctured at the 
base ; the former are geniculated and twelve -jointed, the basal 
joint is long and clubbed ; second and third elongated, fourth and 
fifth oblong, three following globose ; the remainder forming an 
ovate- conic club ; head with an impression between the eyes, and, 
as well as the thorax, is coarsely punctured, with short whitish 
depressed hairs ; the latter is triangular, truncated, and nar- 
rowed before, the sides being hollowed, forming a small tubercle 
on each ; the anterior margin reflexed, the lobes ochreous beneath ; 
there is a broadish channel down the back, and a short groove in 
the breast; scutel minute and depressed; elytra semi-ovate, with 
ten clean-cut stria; on each ; the interstices scabrose, and sparingly 
clothed with short whitish hairs ; the apex roughish ; wings two, 
and ample, folded and concealed beneath the cases ; underside 
speckled with whitish ochreous scales ; the pleurae ochreous white : 
six legs equal, with whitish depressed hairs ; thighs stout, with a 
small pilose tooth on the underside of each (fig. 20 /) ; shanks 
stoutish ; feet four-jointed, two basal joints trigonate, third broad. 
* Royal Agric. Soc. Jour., vol. iii. p. 315. 
•!• Cuitis's Guide, Gen. 345, No. 37''; and British Eiitom., f'ol. and pi, 670. 
