. Cassell's natural history. Animals; Animal behavior. 342 ^^ATURAL EHYNCHITES great size, and are among the largest Beetles known. These are not granivorous, but live in the stems of succulent plants and trees, especially palms and bananas, several kinds being very destructive also to the sugar-cane. The fat grubs of a species of Rhunchophorn,s, fovmd in sugar-plantations in Guiana, contain in their entrails lumps of sweet wax, secreted from their saccharine pabulum, and are boiled and eaten by the natives. We figure a species of this genus, with its obese larva in situ. T
. Cassell's natural history. Animals; Animal behavior. 342 ^^ATURAL EHYNCHITES great size, and are among the largest Beetles known. These are not granivorous, but live in the stems of succulent plants and trees, especially palms and bananas, several kinds being very destructive also to the sugar-cane. The fat grubs of a species of Rhunchophorn,s, fovmd in sugar-plantations in Guiana, contain in their entrails lumps of sweet wax, secreted from their saccharine pabulum, and are boiled and eaten by the natives. We figure a species of this genus, with its obese larva in situ. The species of the brilliant metallic-coloured genus Rhynchites, belonging to the old section Ortliocera, attack various fruits. Many species are common in Europe, and seventeen are inliabi- tants of the British Islands. The females lay their eggs in the newly-formed fruit of apples, pears, plums, (fee, piercing first holes for the purpose, and after- wards notching the peduncle of the fruit, so that it soon dies and falls. Rhynchites bacchus, a species of a rich golden-purple hue, and a quarter of an inch in length, sometimes proves very destructive to the pear crop in France. Apoderus coryli attacks nuts, and is common on hazel-trees in woods in England. The allied genus ApioH, small blue-black Weevils, with pear-shaped bodies, prey upon the seeds of leguminous shrubs, especially vetches, and are of great number and variety. The species belonging to the "•enus Larinus afiect plants of the Compositce order, the larvse feeding on the flowers, forming little cocoons by gluing together fibrils and fragments of the inflorescence. A large number of Our- culionidie pass their early stages in the pith of stems of trees and plants. One small group (Orcltestes), reiuarkable for their thickened hind legs and faculty of leaping, are leaf-miners in their larva state ; as many as ten or twelve of the larvffi of Orchestes pratensis have been seen in discoloured patches on the leaves o
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjecta, booksubjectanimals
