means of drawing them from the crop. Family: =Curculionidæ= (_Weevils_). Most species are small. Head lengthened into a proboscis (Fig. 79, 3); the jaws are found at the front end of the proboscis, the eyes at its base. The antennæ, which in most species are bent like a knee, and are always thickened at the tip, are attached to the front end, middle, or hinder end of the proboscis. The wing-covers usually extend to the tip of the abdomen, and clasp it in several species. Feet four-jointed. Weevils are mostly sluggish; many kinds do not fly at all; others only during the breeding season. When disturbed they let themselves fall to the ground as if dead. Almost without exception the females lay their eggs within plants, boring a hole by means of their proboscis, and shoving in the egg. The whitish larvæ (Fig. 66) are more or less curved and limbless, with hard brownish heads. [Illustration: FIG. 77.—The Bean Beetle (_Bruchus rufimanus_) and beans gnawed by it. ] The =Seed Beetles= (_Bruchus_) have a very short snout. Body short, thick-set, almost four-cornered. The wing-covers leave the hinder part of the body exposed. The female lays her eggs in the seeds of leguminous plants. The larva hollows out one or several, becoming a pupa in the one last inhabited. Here belong the =Pea Beetle= (_B. pisi_), the two =Bean Beetles= (_B. rufimanus_ and _B. granarius_), of which the last-named also lives in vetches and chickling peas, and the =Lentil Beetle= (_B. lentis_). The =Pea Beetle= (_B. pisi_) is black, with brown hairy covering flecked with white. Like all other species of seed beetle, it becomes a pupa in the last seed inhabited by the larva, and the pupa changes into a beetle in autumn. A pea inhabited by such an insect can be recognized by a black translucent patch, since the beetle has become a pupa immediately under the seed-coat. Late the following spring the beetle crawls out. As the beetles are usually still in the peas at the time of sowing, the process brings them into the fields. Later on, when the beetles crawl out, they lay their eggs in the ovaries of the flowers of the pea-plants, which have meanwhile developed. The _remedies_ are, consequently,—late sowing of the peas, or killing the beetles in them by exposure (for two minutes) to a temperature of 122° Fahr., or for ten minutes to sulphur dioxide fumes in a closed space. The remaining three species of Bruchus have the same habits as the bean beetle, but the insect often creeps out much earlier, so that the seeds do not require treatment. [Illustration: FIG. 78.—Attacks of Pea Weevil: _a_, _b_, on pea leaves; _c_, on a bean leaflet. ]