CALA'NDRA, a genus of Coleopterous Insects belonging to the section Rhynchophora, and family Curculionidm. It has the following characters :—AntennR eight-jointed, geniculated, and inserted behind the middle of the rostrum (that is, towards the base); the six joints following the basal one are short, the apical joint forma a large knob, generally somewhat hatchet-shaped, having the apex soft and spongy ; rostrum long, and slightly bent downwards ; thorax rather long and depressed, narrower in front than behind ; body somewhat depressed and pointed at the apex; elytra shorter than the abdomen ; legs short, tibiae armed with a spine ; tarsi four-jointed, the penultimate joint bibbed.
The well-known Cern-Weevil (C. granaria), which commits so much havock in our granaries, belongs to this genus : it is about one-sixth of an inch long, or rather less; of a pitchy-red colour ; the thorax is coarsely punctured, and the wing-easea are deeply striated ; the atrim are minutely punctured; the legs and antennae arc red.
This little insect bores a hole into the grain with its proboscis, in which an egg is deposited; the egg turns to a little grub or larva, which devours the whole of the inside of the grain, leaving the husk entire. This quantity of food is just sufficient to mature the grub : it
then turns to the pupa, and afterwards to the weevil, which easily breaks through the husk, and is then at liberty to proceed as its parent did. When wheat is suspected to contain these little weevils or their grubs, that which is affected may be easily discovered by throwing the whole into water; that which is good will sink, while the rest will float.
Another species of Calandra (C. Ory:m, Linn.) closely resembling the corn-weevil, from which however it may be distinguished by its having four red spots on its elytra, attacks the rice grain in the same way as the one above mentioned does that of the wheat.
C. Palmerunt, a large species, being about an inch and a half in length, lives during its larva state on the pith of the palms of South America. It is of a dull, velvet-like black, and has the proboscis fur nished with a brush of black hairs on the upper part near the apex.
The larva of this species, which is called by the natives the Ver Palmiste, is considered by them a great dainty.