37 
appearance and a few facts concerning its history, habits, and distribu- 
tion are furnished. 
The adult beetle is shown in natural position at fig. !>. The form of 
the antennae will sufficiently distinguish it from all otln r species likely 
to be found in similar locations. The head is prolonged into a short, 
broad, vertical rostrum, at the end of which are the mandibles. The 
ground color is dark brown, clothed with mottled light and dark brown 
pubescence. The arrangement of light and dark varies, but the illustra- 
tion affords an idea of the average pattern. The length varies from two 
to three sixteenths of an inch (2.5 to 4. .3 mm.). The insect has some 
resemblance to the Bruchidse, with which family it was classed in 
earlier times, but is now placed iu the family Anthribidae which is given 
a position at the end of the rhynchophorous series by American syste- 
matists and an intermediate position between the Curcolionidae and 
Bruchida- by European authors. 
The beetle is a very active little creature, running, leaping, and 
flying readily when disturbed. From its occurrence in cotton bolls in 
the same situations as the cotton-boll weevil. Anthonomus grandis, it has 
been often mistaken for that species. 
The larva exhibited at a is also mistaken for that of the boll weevil. 
It will be readily distinguished, however, by its more nearly uniform 
breadth, its proportionately larger head, and by other characters which 
will become apparent in comparing the accompanying figure (a) with 
that of the Anthonomus published in Insect Life (Vol. VII. p. 296), 
and in circulars Xos. and 14 of this Division. The color of cotton- 
boll-bred larvae and pupae is salmon with honey-yellow head and dark 
brown mandibles, and the body is much wrinkled and hairy. The 
elytral pads in the pupa terminate in a peculiar nnguiform process. 
The larva and pupa of Anthonomus grandis are whitish, and compara- 
tively smooth and glabrous. 
The species was first discovered upwards of a hundred years ago, 
but, I am informed, a popular account of the species from the pen of 
Sybilla Merian was published early in the last century. 
Having been early distributed by commerce to all quarters of the 
globe, the insect is cosmopolitan and. as with other species of world- 
wide distribution, it has been described under various synonyms. 
DeGeer's original description appeared in 177."). and in 17S1 Fabriciua 
described it, giving it the name of Bruchus canto, from its food plant, 
Theobroma cacao, the nutritive seeds of which its larva inhabits. Fabri- 
cius afterwards described it under the name of Anthribus eoffea, from 
another larval food plant, Coffea ardbica, or coffee tree, the raw berry 
of which it also infests. It is reported as injurious to coffee in Brazil 
and to attack a species of ginger native to China. In our Southern 
States it is associated with the cotton plant, being frequently met with 
in diseased bolls and, since the prominence that has been given to the 
cotton-boll weevil, is often mistaken, as already stated, for that species. 
Mr. Schwarz informs me that this insect also breeds in the seeil pods 
