in zoology, a genus of insects belonging to the order of coleoptera. The feelers are subclavated, and rest upon the frons, which is prominent and hairy. These insects are divided into the following families. 1. Those which have the rostrum longer than the thorax, and whose thighs are simple.

2. Those which have the rostrum longer than the thorax, and the thighs thicker and made for leaping.

3. Those which have the rostrum longer than the thorax, and the thighs dentated.

4. Those which have dentated thighs, and a rostrum shorter than the thorax.

5. Those whose thighs are without teeth or spines, and the rostrum shorter than the thorax. There are no less than 95 species, principally distinguished by their colour.

The larvae of the curculiones differ not from those of most coleopterous insects. They bear a resemblance to oblong soft worms. They are provided anteriorly with six scaly legs, and their head is likewise scaly. But the places where these larvae dwell, and their transformations, afford some singularities. Some species of them, that are dreaded for the mischief they do in granaries, find means to introduce themselves, while yet small, into grains of corn, and there make their abode. It is very difficult to discover them, as they lie concealed within the grain. There they grow at leisure, enlarging their dwelling-place as they grow, at the expense of the interior meal of the grain on which they feed. Corn-lofts are often laid waste by these insects, whose numbers are sometimes so great as to devour and destroy all the corn. When the insect, after having eaten up the meal, is come to its full size, it remains within the grain, hidden under the empty husks, which subsists alone; and there transformed, it becomes a chrysalis, nor does it leave it till a perfect insect, making its way through the husk of the grain. It is no easy matter to discover by the eye the grains of corn thus attacked and hollowed out by these insects, as they outwardly appear large and full: but the condition the curculio has reduced them to, renders them much lighter; and if you throw corn infested by these insects into water, all the tainted grains will swim, and the rest sink to the bottom. Other larvae of curculiones are not so fond of corn, but fix in the same manner on several other seeds. Beans, peas, and lentils, that are preserved dry, are liable to be spoiled by these little animals, which prey upon the inward part of the grain, where they have taken up their habitation, and do not come forth till they have completed their transformation, by breaking through the outward husk of the grain; this is discoverable by casting these grains into water; those that swim are generally perforated by the curculiones. Other species are lodged in the inside of plants. The heads of artichokes and thistles are often bored through and eaten away by the larvae of large curculiones. Another species smaller, but singular, pierces and inwardly consumes the leaves of elms. It frequently happens that almost all the leaves of an elm appear yellow, and as it were dead towards one of their edges, while the whole remainder of the leaf is green. Upon inspecting these leaves, the dead part appears to form a kind of bag or small bladder. The two laminae or outward pellicles of the leaf, as well above as below, are entire, but distant and separated from each other, whilst the parenchyma that lies between them has been consumed by several small larvae of the curculio, that have made themselves that dwelling, in which they may be met with. After their transformation they come forth, by piercing the kind of bladder, and give being to a curculio that is brown, small, and hard to catch, by reason... reason of the nimbleness with which it leaps. The property of leaping, allotted to this single species, depends on the shape and length of its hinder legs.