318 
TRANSFORMATIONS OF INSECTS. 
winter in the pine-forests of Germany, destroys the Cocci in great 
numbers. The genus Attelabus has a very pretty species, with 
red elytra and corselet ; its habits have been very carefully ob- 
served by M. Goureau. The female deposits an egg at the end 
of an oak-leaf, then she splits the large median nervure across 
several times close together, then she folds the leaf and rolls it 
up, and thus makes a safe home for her larva, which she never 
sees, and of whose habits she can form no conception. The larvae 
live in leaves and flowers ; they only eat the tissue between the 
outside skin. They change their skin several times before they 
attain their full growth ; and having spun a cocoon of silk, or of 
glutinous matter, they shut themselves up and undergo their 
transformations. The larvae of other species live either in the 
stems of plants or in fruits, which serve them as a shelter and as 
food. They do great mischief to the plants upon which they live, 
but they are perfectly harmless as beetles. The species of the 
genus Apoderus and Rhynchites — the last being characterised by a 
long and thin beak — have the instinct of cutting the stems of 
leaves or the ends of twigs, and of laying their eggs just inside ; 
and their larvae, which can only live upon fading leaves, have thus 
to thank their parent for giving them life, and their peculiar 
means of subsistence also. 
In the engraving above the real and magnified sizes of two 
common beetles, whose long beaks are very visible, are shown. 
Many of the species are very hurtful to fruit trees, and it 
appears that the male insect, in some instances, helps the female 
Rhynchites Bacchus. 
Apoderus coryli. 
