392 
COLEOPTERA. 
bushes, and it is advisable to remember that they often sham dead 
and fall to the ground when the plant is shaken. Larvae are to be 
found in every possible part of the plant and practice enables the col¬ 
lector to discern swollen twigs or branches in which larvae are found. 
They are not difficult to rear and almost any part of a plant is worth 
investigating for weevil grubs. The rarer species are obtained in this 
way and there is no better collecting method than to search systema¬ 
tically among wild plants. Benzene is the best killing agent and the 
weevils keep well until required to be set. 
Brenthim;. 
Antennce straight , nine or eleven-pointed. A horizontal rostrum, 
usually long. Tarsi pilose beloiv. Body elongate. 
A family closely allied to the Curculionids but usually of more 
elongate and linear form. They are usually bare, shining, of dull 
browns and ferruginous tints. The 
males in some cases have large curved 
mandibles or expanded and toothed 
fore femur and tibia. The habits of 
but few are known and none of these 
appear to be Indian. In general, they 
are wood-boring or found in decaying 
wood. They are chiefly tropical and 
well represented in the forests of the 
East. There are two sub-divisions : 
Antennae eleven-jointed. Brenthince. 
,, nine ,, Ulocerince. 
There are about twenty recorded 
Indian species, but the family has been 
greatly neglected. Several species 
are common in the plains, in some 
of which there appears to be a consi- Fig. 270. -Orychodes sp. x 4. 
derable amount of sexual differentia¬ 
tion in respect of the head and rostrum. The family is listed by 
Yon Schonfeldt in Genera Insectorum (1908), who enumerates 
10 species from India exclusive of Burmah and Ceylon, the small 
