THE BRENTHIANS. 
67 
way. They receive the above name from the shape of the 
beetles, which resembles that of a pear. Say’s Apion, Apioyi 
Sayi * of Schonherr (Fig. 33), is a minute black 
species, not more than one tenth of an inch long, 
exclusive of the slender, sharp-pointed snout. Its 
grubs live in the pods of the common wild-indigo 
bush, Baptisia tinctoria^ devouring the seeds. A 
smaller kind, somewhat like it, inhabits the pods 
and eats the seeds of the locust-tree, or Rohinia 
pseudacacia. 
Naturalists place here a little group of snout-beetles, called 
Brenthid^, or Brenthians, which differ entirelv .in their 
forms from the other weevils, both in the beetle and grub 
state. They have a long, narrow, and cylindrical body. 
The snout projects from the head in a straight line with 
the body, and varies in shape according to the sex of the 
insect, and even in individuals of the same sex. In the 
males it is broad and flat, sometimes as long as the thorax, 
sometimes much shorter, and it is widened at the tip, where 
are situated twm strong nippers or upper jaws ; in the females 
it is long, very slender, and not enlarged at the extremity, 
and the nippers are not visible to the naked eye. The 
feelers are too small to be seen. The antennae are short, 
straight, slightly thickened towards the tip, and implanted 
before the prominent eyes, on the middle of the snout in 
the males, and at the base of it in The females. The legs 
are short, the first pair being the largest, and the hindmost 
unusually distant from the middle pair. These insects live 
under the bark and in the trunks of trees, but verv little 
has been published respecting their habits ; and the only 
description of their larvae that has hitherto appeared is con¬ 
tained in my first Report on the Insects of Massachusetts, 
printed in the year 1838, in the seventy-second number of 
the “ Documents of the House of Representatives.” 
The only beetle of this family known in the New England 
* Apion rostrum^ Say. 
