
508 - THER INSECT WORLD. 
Next day the surgeon having seen Latreille again in his prison, 
was obliged to confess to him that in his friend’s opinion this 
Coleopteron had never been described. Latreille knew by this 
answer that Bory de Saint Vincent was an adept. As they gave 
the prisoner neither pen nor paper, he said to his messenger, -— 
“T see plainly that M. Bory de Saint Vincent must know my 
name. You willtell him that I am the Abbé Latreille, and that 
I am going to die at Guyana, before having published my ‘ Examen 
des Genres de Fabricius.’ ”’ 
Bory, on receiving this piece of news, took active steps, and 
obtained leave for Latreille to come out of his prison, as a con- 
valescent, his uncle Dayclas and his father being bail for him, 
and pledging themselves formally to deliver up the prisoner 
the moment they were summoned to do so by the authorities. 
The vessel which was to have conducted Latreille to exile or 
rather to death, was getting ready whilst these steps were being 
taken, and while Bory and Dayclas were obtaining leave for him 
to come out of prison. This was quite providential, for it foundered 
in sight of Cordova, and the sailors alone were able to save them- 
selves. A little time afterwards his friends managed to have his 
name scratched out from the list of the exiles. It is thus that 
the Necrobia ruficollis was the saving of Latreille. 
The tribe of weevils is even much more numerous than that of 
the Klateride and the Buprestide. One may know them by their 
head prolonged: into a snout or trumpet, by their rudimentary 
mouth, and by their elbowed antennz. There exist about twenty 
thousand species. They feed on vegetables. Their larve are 
soft, whitish worms, without legs, with very small heads, and live 
in the interior of the stalks or seeds of plants, often oecasioning 
enormous damage. They are one of the plagues of agriculture. 
Each of our dry vegetables, each variety of our cereals, has in 
this immense family its particular enemy. 
First are the Bruchi: The Pea weevil (Bruchus pisi, Fig. 554), 
which is brown with white spots, comes out of the pea, at the 
end of the summer. The female lays her eggs on peas which 
are ripe, and still standing, in whieh the larva scoops out a habi- 
tation, and then makes its exit by a circular hole (Fig. 555). It 
remains at rest all the winter, and is not hatched till towards the 

