WEEVIL  , Anglo-Saxon wifel, a

term now commonly applied to the members of a group of Coleoptera termed the Rhyncophora . This group is characterized by the prolongation of the head into a rostrum or proboscis, at the end of which the mouth, with its appendages, is placed . The antennae are usually elbowed, and often end in a club-shaped swelling . The basal portion of the antennae frequently lies in a depression at the side of the rostrum, and this gives the antennae the appearance of emerging half-way along the rostrum . The mouth appendages are small; the mandibles, however, are stout . The palps are very short and conical as a rule . The body is usually small; in shape it varies very much . The elytra are very hard, and in some cases fused with one another, rendering flight impossible . The larvae are white, fleshy, apodal grubs, with a series of tubercles along each side of the body; the head is round, and bears strong jaws, and sometimes rudimentary ocelli . They are exclusively phytophagous . The Rhyncophora embrace four families,—(1) the Curculionidae, or true weevils, (2) the Scolytidae, or bark-beetles, (3) the Brenthidae, (4) the Anthribidae . The Curculionidae form one of the largest families amongst the Coleoptera, the number of species described exceeding 20,000, arranged in '1150 genera .

The antennae are elbowed, and clavate, with the basal portion inserted in a groove . The third tarsal

joint is generally bilobed . Over 400 species exist in Great Britain, few of which exceed half an inch in length . The genera Phyllobius and Polydrosus include some of the most beautiful insects found in Britain—their brilliancy, like that of the Lepidoptera, being due to the presence of microscopic scales . The diamond beetle of South America, Entimus imperialis, is another singularly beautiful weevil; its colour is black, studded with spangles of golden green . The immense family of the Curculionidae includes members which differ greatly from one another in size, colour, and appearance; even the rostrum, the most striking common characteristic, varies greatly . The form of the body is very various: some are rounded or oval, others elongated, almost linear; some are covered with warty protuberances, whilst others are smooth and shining, often with a metallic lustre . One of the commonest members of this family in Great Britain is the nut weevil, Balaninus nucum . It is of a brownish colour, varied with yellow, the legs reddish . Its rostrum is unusually long, being five-sixths of the body length in the female, and slightly shorter in the male . The antennae are 7-jointed . The first three joints are much longer than thick; the four fc,llowing are shorter, and the seventh not longer than thick .

The larva is very common in

hazel nuts and filberts . When the nuts are about half-grown, the female bores, with its rostrum, a minute hole in the still comparatively soft nut-shell, and deposits an egg within the nut . The egg is said to be pushed in by means of the long rostrum . As the nut grows the slight puncture becomes almost obliterated, so that it is unnoticed by all but the most observant eye . The larva is a thick white grub with a brownish head, bearing fleshy tubercles along its side . It feeds upon the substance of the nut . The nuts which are infested by this insect are usually the first to fall to the ground; the larva then bores a round hole through the nut shell, by means of its jaws, and creeps out . It hides itself in the ground during the winter, and in the spring it passes into the pupa stage, from which it emerges about August as the full-grown insect . A nearly allied form, Balaninus glandium, attacks both hazel nuts and acorns . In an unobtrusive way weevils do immense harm to vegetation . This is effected not so much by their numbers and their powers of consumption, as amongst caterpillars, but by their habits of attacking the essential parts of a plant, and causing by their injuries the death of the plant affected . They destroy the young buds, shoots and fruits, and attack the young plants in their most delicate organs .

Many of them devour

seed, as the corn weevils, Calandra granaria and C. eryzae, and in this way vegetation is severely injured, and its spread seriously checked . Others cause much damage in forests, by boring under the bark and through the wood of trees, whilst some even burrow in the tissue of the leaves . The Brenthidae, Anthribidae and Scolytidae are described in the article COLEOPTERA . The Bruchidae are often called " weevils," but they have no close affinity with the Rhynchophora, being nearly allied to the Chrysomelidae or leaf beetles . The antennae are straight, and inserted upon the head just in front of the eyes; they are 11-jointed, and serrated or toothed in the inside . Bruchus pisi causes considerable damage to pease; during the spring the beetle lays its eggs in the young pea, which is devoured by the larva which hatches out in it . (A . E . S.; G . H .