396 RAVAGES OF INSECTS. 



the ground peas on shipboard so infested with these grabs, 

 that they were seen in every spoonful of the soup. In the 

 case of soup, or of other food which has been exposed to 

 heat, the only inconvenience is the disgust which must 

 ensue ; but, unfortunately, there may sometimes occur cir- 

 cumstances of a more serious nature, from either the eggs 

 or the insects themselves being incautiously swallowed 

 alive. AVe do not wish, however, to create, so much as to 

 allay, the fears entertained by those who are unacquainted 

 with the habits of insects ; and nothing we are persuaded 

 will do this more effectually than a statement of facts well 

 ascertained. " Seveial people," says the Abbe de la Pluche, 

 " never eat fruit because they believe that spiders and other 

 insects scatter their eggs upon it at random ;"* but even if 

 this were so, as it is not, it would be impossible for the 

 young, should they be hatched in the stomach, to live there 

 for an instant. The possible cases in which this may occur 

 we shall now briefly notice ; they are fortunately very rare. 



The grub of the nut weevil (Balauinus Nucum, Germar) 

 might, perhaps, by rare accident, get into the stomach, 

 either of man or of the quadrupeds which feed on nuts ; 

 but as it is by no means so tenacious of life as the grub of 

 the churchyaid-beetle (Blaps mortisagci), it is unlikely that it 

 would produce any considerable disorder. The weevil in 

 question, like the rest of its congeners, is furnished with 

 an instrument for depositing its eggs considerably different 

 from those of the ichneumons and saw-flies. For this 

 purpose the weevil makes use of its long horny beak 

 (^Rostrum) to drill a hole in filberts and hazel-nuts, while in 

 their young and soft stare, about the beginning of August. 

 The mother weevil may then be seen eagerly running over 

 the bushes, and it would appear that she always rejects the 

 nuts in which one of her neighbours may have previously 

 laid an egg ; at least we never find two grubs in the same 

 nut. The egg which is thus thrust into the young nut, is 

 of a brown colour, and is hatched in about a fortnight, the 

 grub feeding on the interior of the shell as well as the soft 

 * Spectacle de la Natiue, vol. i. p. 65. 



