La KIN US.- 
INSECTS. 0KYF’rOKHYUCHID.iK. 
229 
I 
ivs often occasions much damage to the gardener by 
destroying plants in pots. Mr. Westwood and the 
late Mr. Haworth found this insect in the month of 
Fig. 122. 
ElytruruB atratus. 
December, at the roots of plants in pots at a short 
distance below the surface, where they gnawed round 
the upper part of the root, leaving the lower parts and 
the leaves and stems untouched. They enter into the 
pupa state in the beginning of summer, and soon emerge 
as beetles. The larva is clothed with numerous short, 
rigid hairs. 
Another destructive species is the Otiorhynchus 
picipes, an insect, like most of its congeners, so like 
the soil in colour, that when it does not move, or lies 
with its limbs contracted, it requires a very sharp eye 
to distinguish it from the ground. This Weevil is at 
times a dreadful pest in gardens, from the ravages it 
commits on vines in hothouses and on wall-fruit during 
the night. These ravages are caused by their feeding 
on the jmung shoots. Tn spring they injure raspberry 
plants by eating through the flowering stems and leaves, 
and as early as February or March they attack the bark 
and buds of apple and pear trees. 
Of the group Erirhinidce there are ninety-two re- 
corded British species in the following genera : — 
Lixixs, with its host of narrow species, mostly exotic. 
The beautiful L. bicolor is found at Deal ; Larinus, 
with one British species; Rhinocyllus, Pissodes, con- 
fined to northern parts, where the species P. Notatus 
is often very destructive to the pine forests; Mag- 
dalinus and Erirhinus. One is named E. vorax, pro- 
bably because it does much damage. Grypidius, 
Hydronorous, Ellescbus, and Brachonyx ; Anlho- 
nomus Balaninus {Balaninus nucum is the common Nut- 
weevil); Amalus, Tychius, Miccotrogus, Smicronyx, 
Sibynes, and Orchcstes. 
Daniel Hanbury, Esq., in the Proceedings of the Lin- 
naean Society for May, 1859, has figured a curious insect 
product, the cocoon of the Larinus maculatus. These 
cocoons are called Trehala or Tricala by the Turks. 
They are constructed by the weevil on a species of 
Echinops ; they form “ the basis of a mucilaginous 
drink administered to the sick,” and enjoy in con- 
sequence some celebrity in the East. They are of an 
oval or round form, and about three-quarters of an inch 
in length ; outside is a rough, tuberculated coating 
of a greyish-white colour, looking like earth or ashes 
held together with gum. These cocoons, according to 
M. Guibourt, are composed “ of a large proportion of 
starch, gum of a peculiar saccharine matter, a bitter 
principle, besides earthy and alkaline salts.” — {Han- 
bury, 1. c., p. 181.) 
M. Bourlier says that, in Constantinople, the Jew 
drug-dealers keep great quantities of the Trehala, and 
that “ it is frequently used by the Arab and Turkish 
physicians in the form of a decoction, which is regarded 
b}' them as of peculiar efficacy in diseases of the respira- 
tory organs. 
Fig, 123 shows the Larinus mellificus of Jekel, a 
species, like the former, said to secrete a saccharine 
substance resembling dark honey. 
The group Baridiidce is an immense group of 
weevils, often very beautifully metallic. In Britain 
only five species are found. There must be at least 
between four and five hundred species in the Bow- 
ringian collection. 
The group Cryptorhynchidce, so called from the 
beak being capable of withdrawal into a groove on the 
breast, contains eighty-three British species in fourteen 
genera, the most numerous of which in species are 
Cceliodes, Bagcnis, and Ceutorhynclius. On Plate 4, 
-fig. 1 0, is figured a fine Brazilian species of the group 
named Ameris Dufresnii — Kirby giving it the specific 
name in compliment to a French naturalist, who sold 
his collections to the Edinburgh College Museum. We 
figure here the strange and rare Phybomorplms atratus, 
described by M. Henri Jekel, and which looks liker 
one of the Heteromera than a weevil (fig. 124). It is 
from Lord Howe’s Island. 
Fig. 124. 
Hybcmorphns atratus. 
The other cut (fig. 125) represents the curious TacJiy- 
opus Lecontei, a small beetle about a line and a third 
long. It lives on oaks in South Carolina, on the under 
s'de of leaves, where it was found by Dr. Zimmerman, 
who says they feign death. The}' fix themselves to the 
