82 COLEOPTERA. 
One of 1 tlie black dots is on the scutel, mid the otlieis me 
on the hinder angles of the thorax ; and by these it can be 
readily distinguished from other species. According to Miss 
Morris, it lays its eggs singly on the plant at the base of a 
leaf. The grubs burrow into and consume the inner sub- 
stance of the stalk, proceeding downwards towards the root. 
In many fields in the neighborhood of Germantown every 
stem was found to be infested by these insects, causing the 
premature decay of the vines, and giving to them the appear- 
ance of having been scalded. The insects undergo all their 
transformations in the stalks. Their pupa state lasts from 
fourteen to twenty days, and they take the beetle form dur- 
ing the last of August and beginning of September. These 
insects, though common enough in the Middle States, I have 
never found in New England, in the course of thirty years 
of observation, (md have failed to discover them here since 
my attention was called to their depredations by Miss Morris. 
That they may become very injurious to the potato crop 
where they abound, will be readily admitted ; but, as they 
do not occur in all places, either here or in Europe, where 
the potato-rot has prevailed, they cannot be justly said to 
produce this disease.* 
The most pernicious of the Rhynchophorians, or snout- 
beetles, are the insects properly called grain-weevils, belong- 
ing to the old genus Calandra. These insects must not be 
confounded with the still more destructive larvae of the corn- 
moth ( Tinea granella), which also attacks stored grain, nor 
with the orange-colored maggots of the wheat-fly ( Gecido >nyiu 
Tritici ), which are found in the ears of growing wheat. Al- 
though the grain-weevils are not actually injurious to vege- 
tation, yet as the name properly belonging to them has often 
been misapplied in this country, thereby creating no little 
confusion, some remarks upon them may tend to prevent 
future mistakes. 
* See my communication on this insect, &c., in the New England Farmer, for 
June 22, 1660, Vol. II. p. 204. 
