affecting the Peas and Beans. 
419 
for horses in the East Indies, is consumed by them.* In Car- 
thagena the ravages of a s])ecies of Bruchus are serious upon the 
seeds of the Dividivi or Libidibi, the legumes of which are so 
valuable a substitute both for oak-bark and galls. t In a con- 
siderable sample of those seeds which I obtained, I scarcely found 
one that had not either contained a Brnclius or in which I did not 
find one dead. 
Happily in England there are but few native species of this 
Genus, and of those only one or two commit any havoc on the 
crops. Before entering upon their history I must not forget to 
make the cultivator acquainted with one which has found its way 
from North America into the southern states of Europe, and has 
become naturalized in the warmer departments of France. It is 
to be hoped that our climate will not suit the economy of this 
pest, for I have frequently found the beetles in imported peas.l 
The first notice we have of this insect was from INI. Kalm, a 
Swedish traveller, who stated § that in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, 
and the southern parts of New York, this beetle, or rather its 
maggots, were making such ravages amongst the peas, that the in- 
habitants had been obliged to abandon the culture of that excel- 
lent and useful pulse. 
As the economy of this species has been well investigated, I 
shall relate what has been published regarding it. The beetles 
pair in summer, whilst the peas are in flower and producing 
pods ; the females then deposit an egg in alrftost every pea which 
has just formed. From the outside of these peas, when arrived 
at maturity, they do not appear damaged, but on opening them 
one generally finds a very little larva, which, if left to re- 
pose, remains there all the winter and part of the following 
summer, consuming by degrees all the internal substance of the 
pea, so that in the spring the skin only remains, after which it is 
transformed into an insect with scaly wing-cases, which pierces a 
hole in the skin of the pea (fig. 33), from whence it comes forth 
(fig. 7<,'), and resorts to the fields sowed with that pulse, in order 
to deposit its eggs in the new pods. || I think it is Dr. Harris 
who says that the eggs are laid only during the night or in 
cloudy weather ; that each egg is always placed opposite to a pea ; 
that the grubs, as soon as they are hatched, penetrate the pod and 
bury themselves in the pea; and the holes through which they 
pass are so fine as hardly to be perceived, and are soon closed."^[ 
• Kirby and Spence's Introd. to Ent., 6th ed., vol. i. p. 143. 
•i- Trans. Ent. Soc, vol. i. p. xxiv. 
% Those from Odessa are, I think, the worst. 
§ Voyage en Amcrique, vol. ii. p. 294. 
II De Geei''s Mcmuiies, vol. v. p. 280. 
■[[ Treatise on Insects. 
