. Agricultural news. Agriculture -- West Indies; Plant diseases -- West Indies. 106 THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. Ai'KiL 2, 1910. INSECT NOTES. LADY-BIRDS AND WEEVIL BORERS. The lady-birds and weevils belong to two groups of tli"! beetles, 01- Coleoptera ; the lady-birds to tlie family Coccinel- lidae, and the weevils to the sub-order Rhyncophora. They are very distinct in appearance, as well as in habit, and the' members of one group can easily be told from those of the other. The weevils (Rhyncophora) have the head prolonged into a beak or snout, and from this peculiar structure they have been
. Agricultural news. Agriculture -- West Indies; Plant diseases -- West Indies. 106 THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. Ai'KiL 2, 1910. INSECT NOTES. LADY-BIRDS AND WEEVIL BORERS. The lady-birds and weevils belong to two groups of tli"! beetles, 01- Coleoptera ; the lady-birds to tlie family Coccinel- lidae, and the weevils to the sub-order Rhyncophora. They are very distinct in appearance, as well as in habit, and the' members of one group can easily be told from those of the other. The weevils (Rhyncophora) have the head prolonged into a beak or snout, and from this peculiar structure they have been called the snout beetles or bill-bugs. In the case of some of the weevils, the snout is long and slender, and in others short and broad. In all cases the mandibles are .situated at the tip of the The lady-birds (Coccinellidae) are generally rather hemispherical in shape, the wing-covers being much curved and rounded; the head is very small, and the thorax is much smaller than the abdomen, though larger than the head. Fig. shows two lady-birds, (a) the spotted lady-bird, 2Iegilla maculata, and (b) the red lady-bird, Cydoneda mn- ijuinea. Megilld maculata is slightly elongated, pinkish red in colour, with black spots, and rather flat. The red lady- bird is much more hemispherical; the small head and thorax are black, the thorax with a whitish marking; the arched and rounded wing-covers are blood-red. These are common insects in the AVest Fig. 13. them worthy of notice on the part of the agriculturist, and he should distinguii-h them at sight from all other insects. There are several species found commonly in the West Indies, and in ever}- country there are indigenous ones which prey on the native forms of scales and plant lice, generally kee[iing them in check, except for occasional outbreaks. An interesting and valuable example of this is to be found in the case of an Australian scale insect and its associated lady-bird. The scale insect—the fluted scale (Iceri/a
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