Otiorhyncus sulcatus. The succulent Weevil. Mr. Curtis remarks that: -

"Sedums, and other succulents, in green-houses, will frequently be observed to get sickly, and perhaps die, without any apparent reason. When this is the case they should be carefully examined, and the grubs of the weevil will be found to have eaten off the plant close to the surface of the soil.

"These grubs are about half an inch long, of a dirty white colour, thick and fleshy, slightly curved, and having numerous short rigid hairs on the body. About the middle of May these grubs change into white pupae, which have no cocoons, but ore placed in oval cells, in the earth, perfectly smooth on the inside. They remain in the pupa state about fourteen days, and become beetles. In this latter state they are quite black, and the elytra, or wing-cases, are rather deeply furrowed. In the Berlin Botanic Garden they have been found to infest the roots of saxifrages and trollius, growing in the open border, and cause their death.

"The only methods of destroying them are, at this time of the year, to examine the roots of sedums and other succulent plants, and crush all that may be found; and in June, when the perfect insects appear, to look among the pots, where they are usually lurking, and kill them as soon as they come out, before they have time to deposit their eggs."- Gard. Chron.

Otiorhyncus Tenebricosus

Red-legged garden-weevil. Mr. Curtis says, -

"The maggots of the red-legged garden-weevil are found round the base of the stems of wall-fruit, sometimes in very great quantities, a few inches below the surface, where they undergo their transformations. The beetles, which are old offenders, come out only at night to feed upon the buds of wall-fruit, doing great mischief to apricots, peaches, nectarines, plums, etc. They first destroy the fruit, and subsequently attack the bark and leaves, so as not unfrequently to endanger the life of the trees. They commence their depredations in April by eating the unexpanded blossom-buds, clearing out the centre, and leaving only the external bractea, and occasionally fragments of the immature leaves. They will thus proceed along a branch until all the buds are destroyed, and afterwards demolish the young eyes which ought to produce wood-shoots, until nothing is left but the bare branches.

"The beetles bury themselves by day in the earth, close to the foundation of the wall to which the trees are trained, likewise round the stems of the trees, and most probably in chinks of the bricks, and other dark hiding-places. When recently hatched it is clothed with a delicate yellow pubescence, forming little irregular spots upon the elytra; but they soon wear off and disappear, when it becomes of a shining black, inclining to a pitch-colour.

"The larvae of these otiorhynci being as destructive as the perfect beetles, the main object ought to be to destroy the former, if possible, in the autumn, which probably would be most readily effected by stirring the earth all along the base of the wall and round the stems of the fruit-trees, and then sprinkling salt pretty thickly over the broken surface; or salt and water, or, perhaps, liquid-manure, might be equally beneficial - if hot the better; for it seems evident, from the peculiar spots in which they generate, or rather undergo their transformations, that situations sheltered in a great measure from the wet are most congenial to their habits.

The beetles can only be arrested by hand-picking, with a candle and lantern, and afterwards pouring boiling water upon them, as their shells resist moderate heat." - Gard. Chron.

0. notatus attacks the young shoots of the raspberry and rose, piercing them to the pith.