Bruchus, a genus of beetles.

B. granarius and B. pisi are greatly destructive to our pea crops. They are small brownish beetles, usually found at the same time the plants are in flower, and they deposit their eggs in the tender seeds of leguminous plants, and sometimes in different kinds of corn. In these the larva, a small white fleshy grub, finds both a suitable habitation and an abundance of food. It undergoes all its transformations in the seed, and the perfect insect remains in it till the spring, though in fine autumns the perfect insects appear at that season also. The larvae possess the singular instinct of never attacking the vital part of the seed till the last.

We have often observed the seed pods of chorozema, and other delicate and scarce leguminous plants in greenhouses, pierced by the Bruchus pisi. The more effectual remedy is to pull up and burn the haulm and pods altogether, and not attempt to get a crop at all. Peas infested with B. granarius, are always known by a small hole being on one side, and these should be carefully picked out, as they not only spoil the appearance of a sample, but spread the injury.