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2 
ROSE INSECTS. 
275 
coating for the eggs when they are deposited. The caterpillar is hlack, thickly clothed with long 
black hairs, those nearest to the legs being of a brownish colour, a double red line running along the 
top of the back, interrupted on the fourth or fifth segments, each of which is produced into a small 
tubercle or hunch ; on the ninth and tenth segments the red lines form two wax-like spots. There is 
also a row of spots along each side of the body, formed of short tufts of white hairs, and below these 
is a red longitudinal stripe. The caterpillar feeds on various trees, as the Oak, Elm, Black-Thorn, &c, 
in June. During the present year, we have also observed it feeding upon the petals of the small 
Scotch Rose, in our own garden. It evidently preferred the petals, as it was only when not provided 
with a supply of the flowers that it also attacked the leaves. The moth appears at the end of July, 
and is a common and very widely distributed species. The caterpillar also feeds on the Pear, on which 
tree we have noticed it, for several successive seasons, in the gardens of the Horticultural Society at 
Chiswick. It is occasionally destroyed by one of the parasitic Muscida3 which we have reared from 
it. There has been much confusion in the nomenclature of this and the allied species, the Brown-tail 
Moth, the systematic names of the two species having been transposed, and the two sexes having been 
given as distinct by some authors. The recent investigations of Messrs. H. Doubleday and Stephens 
have cleared up the confusion, and we now give this species under its legitimate specific name. 
Figure i in the preceding woodcut represents the full-grown caterpillar, and the female moth is 
given in the detached figure (Fig. 1). 
Balaninus Brassice. — This little weevil, although generally found upon willows and pot-herbs, 
as well as in hedges and gardens, is very fond of the petals of the Rose, upon which we have observed 
it feeding, riddling them through with small holes. It belongs to the 
genus Balaninus (the type of which is the Nut weevil), but to a diffe- 
rent section of the genus, having the extremity of the body nearly 
covered by the elytra. It measures from one-seventh to one-sixth of 
an inch in length, including the long slender snout, (at the extremity 
of which the minute jaws are fixed,) and is of a black colour, slightly 
~^r \ ^•'•-•■aV ^1 i\ clothed on the upper side 
with fine ashy down, the 
scutellum being snow-white 
and the under side of the 
body and breast white ; the 
rostrum, or probocis is very 
long and slender, slightly furrowed longitudinally at the 
base; the antenna; are fixed at about one-third of the 
length from the tip, the basal joint is pitchy or dark red, 
the remainder blackish, finely-hairy, the 
prothorax is thickly covered with small 
punctures, the elytra are rather deeply 
marked with rows of impressed dots, the 
interstices with a double row of minute 
ashy scales. The legs are black, the thighs 
elavate, each having a small acute spine 
beneath. Varieties occur with the antenna- 
cither entirely black, or nearly, or entirely 
reddish. This is a common and widely 
dispersed species. It is represented highly 
magnified in the woodcut (Fig- 3). 
Meligethes JEuEtFS. — The two prece- 
ding species feed on 
the petals of the flowers 
of the Rose when fully 
expanded. The little 
insect9 now before us 
(Fig. 2, 1;, natural si/e, 
one represented flying ; 
and highly magnified 
in the woodcut, Fig. 4) frequents (lie Rose for the sake of its pollen, which wo 
M have observed it in the act of biting off with its small horny jaws, and devouring. 
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