Beetles of British Guiana. 75 
small beetle, being rarely more than half an inch long, 
and rather slender. Its colour is yellowish brown dotted 
with dark spots. Though it generally attacks the sugar- 
cane I have found it on other plants, but it prefers plants 
which exude saccharine matter or sweet juice. I under- 
stand this inse6l does very little harm to the sugar-cane 
plant itself, but it not only consumes the cane-juice, but 
also damages any of it with which it comes into contact 
to such an extent that it will only make molasses. When 
juice damaged in this way is even mixed with sugar it is 
a very serious matter and one never knows what his 
strike of sugar may be worth. 
I might mention many other destructive beetles of the 
Weevil Tribe, for I scarcely know a useful or ornamental 
tree which has not its enemy in the shape of a weevil or 
borer. The illustrations, however, which I have already 
given may enable readers to find borers or weevils for 
themselves. I shall, therefore, conclude my remarks on 
this family of beetles by a short account of the following 
weevil : Some years ago Mr. Henry TAYLOR, then 
missionary at Buck Hall, in Essequebo, called my atten- 
tion to the fact that in some of the beans of the locust- 
tree there is a beetle about the size of a small pea, 
though there is apparently no hole in the shell of the 
bean through which it can enter. Having satisfied myself 
that this was the case I forwarded one of these beans to 
Dr. David Sharp, who observed traces of a small punc- 
ture near the stalk, through which he inferred the 
mother had inserted an egg when the bean was young 
and its shell soft. In the same bean he discovered the 
chrysalis of a moth, and a small parasitic Hymenopterous 
insect, a fair variety of insects in so small a world, 
K 2 
