254 SOCIAL LIFE IN THE INSECT WORLD 



Let the blackbird sing, and let us return to the eggs of 

 the Curculionidae. We know where the egg is — at the 

 base of the acorn, because the tenderest and most juicy 

 tissues of the fruit are there. But how did it get there, 

 so far from the point of entry ? A very trifling question, 

 it is true ; puerile even, if you will. Do not let us disdain 

 to ask it ; science is made of these puerilities. 



The first man to rub a piece of amber on his sleeve 

 and to find that it thereupon attracted fragments of chaff 

 had certainly no vision of the electric marvels of our 

 days. He was amusing himself in a childlike manner. 

 Repeated, tested, and probed in every imaginable way, 

 the child's experiment has become one of the forces of 

 the world. 



The observer must neglect nothing ; for he never knows 

 what may develop out of the humblest fact. So again 

 we will ask : by what process did the egg of the elephant- 

 beetle reach a point so far from the orifice in the acorn ? 



To one who was not already aware of the position of 

 the egg, but knew that the grub attacked the base of the 

 acorn first, the solution of that fact would be as follows : 

 the egg is laid at the entrance of the tunnel, at the surface, 

 and the grub, crawling down the gallery sunk by the 

 mother, gains of its own accord this distant point where 

 its infant diet is to be found. 



Before I had sufficient data this was my own belief ; 

 but the mistake was soon exposed. I plucked an acorn 

 just as the mother withdrew, after having for a moment 

 applied the tip of the abdomen to tne orifice of the 

 passage just opened by her rostrum. The egg, so it 

 seemed, must be there, at the entrance of the passage. . . . 

 But no, it was not ! It was at the other extremity of the 



I 



