THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
433 
life and apparent well-being. According to strict rule, I 
perhaps ought not to mention the circumstance, but as my 
correspondent communicates no fact, but merely sends the 
specimen with an enquiry as to its name, I see no disadvantage 
in breaking a self-imposed restriction. All the Filariae appear 
to be parasitic, living in the interior of other animals, and 
generally without doing them any visible injury. Three 
species inhabit man, and one of these, the guinea-worm 
(Filaria medinensis), is very annoying, causing painful 
tumours, and giving great trouble in the extraction : it is 
generally supposed to be an inhabitant of damp places in hot 
countries, since it has frequently attacked the natives of 
Africa, Arabia, and India, when on their expeditions and 
walking barefoot. The great object of these people, as soon 
as they are attacked, is to extract the worm entire , because 
if broken the injury remains unabated. The method of 
extraction is on this wise: the extremity of the worm is 
sought for, seized with a pair of forceps, and pulled out with 
great gentleness and care, to avoid the chance of breaking, 
until enough has been exposed to wind round a stick; the 
operation is then abandoned for a time, but is daily renewed, 
and a fresh portion wound round the stick every day until 
the whole is extracted. I cannot accept the popular view 
that these Filariae only attack man in their adult state; it 
seems far more probable that the creature is introduced in 
some other and earlier stage of its existence. Various 
quadrupeds, birds, reptiles, and fishes, are infested by these 
Filariae; in fishes they are particularly numerous : they are 
said to inhabit mollusks, and we frequently find them in 
insects, more particularly among the Carabidae, Silphidae, 
and Bombycidae .—Edward Newman. 
The Rose Weevil .—1 am not surprised that this insect is 
so little known to horticulturists, since it commits its depre¬ 
dations exclusively by night. 1 have received many enquiries 
and many proofs of its injurious operations, but not in a 
single instance a specimen of the insect, which is the 
Otiorhynchus scabrosus, of the family Curculionidae, a rough- 
coated and very hard beetle—indeed so hard that it is difficult 
to crush: it resides by day in the earth, and at night-fall 
crawls up the stems of standard-roses, and gnaws the rind ofl 
last year’s twigs, preferring those which have been cut and 
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