Axtelabid^.- 
-INSECTS.- 
-Rh\'NCHITES. 
227 
fine as hardly to be perceived, and are soon closed. 
Sometimes every pea in a pod will be found to contain 
a weevil-grub ; and so great has been the injury to the 
crop in some parts of the country, that the inhabitants 
have been obliged to give up the cultivation of this 
vegetable.” * 
Peas are destroyed by the gi’ub of a species of this 
group {Bruckus granarius), the female of which will 
sometimes deposit an egg in every pea of a pod. But 
a species indigenous to North America, and also found 
here, is in the former country at times so alarmingly 
destructive as to prevent the inhabitants from cul- 
tivating pease. Kalm, the pupil of Linnaeus, and who 
travelled in North America, was alarmed on opening 
a parcel of peas to see that they were infected by the 
Bruchus, for he feared lest he should be the means of 
introducing a most destructive insect into Sweden. In 
France in 1780, the Bruchi seem to have been very 
abundant ; for in that year a rumour arose that many 
had been poisoned by eating pease attacked by worms, 
and in consequence the authorities would not allow 
them to be offered for sale in the public market. A 
Bruchus attacks a leguminous seed called gram in India, 
where it is used when boiled as food for horses. The 
valuable cacao or chocolate plant {Theobroma cacao) 
has its peculiar Bruchus, as have many other plants. 
There are nine British species. The South American 
Bruchidse — of the genus Caryoharus — are very large. 
I have seen the larva of one in the hard nut of a palm, 
which looked no softer than ivory. 
Family— ANTHRIBID^. 
The family Anthribida:, a very large and fine 
group, but feebly represented in our islands by eight 
British species, contains insects with broad, flat noses, 
and often with antennae of the most wonderful length. 
Many of the South American genera are very curious, 
but none are more strange than some of the odd forms 
sent lately by Wallace from the East. M. Henri Jekel, 
in the Insecta Saundersiana, figured many fine species 
in the vast collections of W. W. Saunders, Esq. The 
British genera are — Brachytarsus, Tropideres, Platy- 
rkinus, Anthribus, and the curious little jumping 
Choragtts described by Kirb 3 L 
Family — ATTEL A BID JH. 
A large family of the group, of which there are at 
least ninety-four recorded British species, the great 
mass of which belong to the genus Apion — a race of 
small beetles so named from their pear-shape ; they 
are attenuated in front, and gradually thickened 
behind. Look at the figure of the strangely-dilated 
Brazilian genus Camarotus ( Camxirotus marginalise 
fig. 119). Many of the family are very destructive to 
plants, and the Apions are especially destructive to 
the crops of the farmers. 
Some of the exotic genera are most strange, such as 
the enormously long-necked Indian and Madagascar 
Apoderi, and a curious genus from that great African 
island, called by the writer Lagenoderus, from its curious 
* Insects Injurious to Vegetation, ji. 55. 
flask-shaped neck. Many of the Apoderi are spined. 
Antliarhinus is placed by authors in a separate family, 
Fig. 119. 
Fig. 120. 
Camarotus marginalis. 
but we may introduce it here. Fig. 120 shows the form 
of the Antliarhinus Zamice. 
The species of Rhynchites are often beautifully 
coloured — some brilliant green, others bright purple, 
and others blue, while all tints decorate others. 
I extract from the “ Introduction to Entomology ” a 
passage which will explain the habits of some of the 
genera of this family : — 
“ The habitations constructed for their future larvae 
by the beautiful weevils or long-snouted beetles of 
the genera Rhynchites, Attelabus, and Apoderus, 
consist of the whole, or more commonly a part, of 
a leaf on which they are to feed, rolled up with 
great art by the mother into a sort of cylinder, 
sometimes resembling a little horn and at others a 
wallet more or less elongated ; thus giving a singular 
appearance to the leaves so treated, which, while their 
basal portion retains its usual form, have their extrem- 
ities metamorphosed into these odd-looking appen- 
dages. A very interesting description of the mode in 
which these nests are constructed has been lately given 
by M. Huber of Geneva, who has detailed the pro- 
cedures of Rhynchites Bacchus with the leaves of the 
vine, of .R. Populi with those of the poplar, of R. Betulce 
with those of the beech and birch, of Apoderus Coryli 
with those of the hazle, and of Attelabus Curculionoides 
with those of the oak, of which last, as more fully 
described by M. Goureau, I will give you a short 
account. The female having deposited a single egg, 
which adheres by its natural gluten, near the mid-rib 
of the end of the upper side of the leaf she has selected, 
passes to the under surface, and slightly, but repeatedly', 
gnaws with her small jaws, both the mid-rib andepidermis 
in every part until both are rendered perfectly pliable. 
Her next business is to roll up this terminal portion of 
the leaf, in effecting which she thus proceeds : — First, 
she folds it together longitudinally so as to cover her 
egg, the mid-rib forming one edge of the folded part, 
and its marginal serratures the other. Next, she places 
herself at a right angle with the mid-rib, towards which 
her tail is directed, while her head points to the ser- 
ratures, and fixing the claws of her two hind left 
legs into the leaf, she employs those of the two fore 
legs to pull the point of it towards her; and by a 
repetition of these manoeuvres, not easily described, 
she at last succeeds in rolling the whole into a little 
