Identifier: insectsabroadbe00wood (find matches)
Title: Insects abroad : being a popular account of foreign insects, their structure, habits, and transformations
Year: 1883 (1880s)
Authors: Wood, J. G. (John George), 1827-1889 Metcalf Collection (North Carolina State University). NCRS
Subjects: Insects
Publisher: London : Longmans, Green, and Co
Contributing Library: NCSU Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: NCSU Libraries

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sible if clinging to a lichen-covered tree-trunk. The surface is covered with variously sized and shapedtubercles, all of which are black. Along either side of the head and thorax runs a narrow yellowish whitestripe, which is continued over theshoulders of the elytra. These stripesreally look very much like the reinsof a horse, and on their accountthe specific name of frenatus, orbridled, has been given to theinsect. Below, the surface is ratherdull black, profusely and finelypunctated. The legs, like the body,are parti-coloured, the thighs andtarsus being black, and the tibiawhite. The generic name of Tophodcresrefers to the peculiar black and whitecolouring of the upper surface. It iscomposed of two Greek words, thelatter of which means a skin orexternal surface, and the othersignifies a kind of mottled stone, which is known to mineralo-gists by the name of tufa, or tuff-stone, this being a corrup-tion of the Greek tophos. The Latin word toplivs is onlyanother form of the same word.
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Fig. 93.—Tophoderes frenatus.(Black and white.) On looking at the figure of the last-mentioned insect, thereader will probably notice that the antennse are muchlenfTthened, This elongation extends through many of the alliedspecies, some of which are so exactly like the Longicorn Beetlesthat it is scarcely possible to imagine them to be Weevils. Themost remarkable species at present known of these long-hornedWeevils is that which is represented in the illustration on thenext page, and known by the name of Xenocerns lineatus. LONU-llOUNED WEEVILS. 197 The former of the two names seems to have been composedmuch as Dickens author composed his work on Chinese meta-physics, by taking a cyclopedia and reading the article Chinaunder the letter C, JNIetaphysics under the letter JI/, and com-bining his information. The author has evidently got hold of anEnglish-Greek lexicon, and, wanting an equivalent for strange-horned, looked for the word strange, or stranger, under theletter ^, and found

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