420 
Observations on the various Insects 
Latreille asserts that if the summer has been hot, the beetles are 
disclosed the following autumn, and that the seeds will grow not- 
withstanding their inhabitants, which spare, owing to a wonderful 
instinct, the vital germ of the pea. 
We can find nowhere any description of the egg. The larvae 
have a soft whitish body, composed of many indistinct segments, 
and are apodes or only have some very minute feet. Their head is 
small, scaly, and armed with strong and sharp-cutting mandibles. 
They have 9 spiracles on each side for breathing. Before changing 
to pupae the maggot eats a round hole from its cell to the rind of 
the pea, which in all probability it partially cuts through with its 
jaws, so that when the beetle shakes off the shroud which envelops 
it, by a slight dilatation of the body, the head is forced against this 
circular lid, which instantly gives way, and the nevi -hoxn Bruclius 
comes forth as represented in fig. 33. In a great number of the 
peas the beetles will be found dead ; but whether this arises from a 
lower temperature than they are accustomed to, not invigorating 
them sufficiently to leave their habitations, or whether they return 
to feed when they cannot make their escape readily, which, may 
be the case when confined in sacks or heaped up in warehouses, 
I am not able to determine. 
These beetles belong to the Order ColeoptilRa, the Family 
Bruchid^, and the Genus Brucxius. The species alluded to 
was named by Linnaeus — 
6. Bruchus Pisi, the Pea Bruchus. It is thickly punctured, black, 
densely clothed with short brightish brown hairs above, more grey and 
silky beneath: head rather small and drooping, ovate, with a distinct 
narrow neck ; the nose narrowed and flattened, at the extremity of 
which is placed the mouth ; this is composed of a crescent-shaped 
labrum, 2 trigonate fulvous mandibles, partially serrated internally; 2 
jaws formed of 2 long hairy lobes, and producing 4-jointed black 
palpi ; and of a broad bilobed chin, producing a large lip dilated be- 
fore, from near the centre of which arise two triarticulate palpi : * 
the eyes are black, prominent, and lunate, having a deep notch be- 
low, where the antenna; are inserted ; these are not longer than the 
thorax, clavate, and 11-jointed, the 4 basal joints are bright fulvous, the 
1st is oblong, 2nd the smallest, ovate, 3rd and 4tli obtrigonatc, the fol- 
lowing much larger, cup-shaped, terminal joint ovate : the thorax is 
twice as broad as the head, transverse, semi-orbicular, the anterior 
margin a little concave, the hinder bisinuated, the angles acute; the 
sides with a little notch at the middle, forming a minute tooth, and there 
is a slight transverse ridge across the middle ; it is variegated with 
orange hairs, the lateral teeth white; there is a white spot before the 
scntel enclosed by a subquadrate black space ; the scutel is minute and 
white : the wing-cases are considerably broader than the thorax, nearly 
* These dissections are figured in Curtis's Brit. Ent., pi. 754. 
