192 THE LIFE AND LOVE OF THE INSECT 



by night, obtains another scroll. Two in twenty-four 

 hours are as much as the most diligent can achieve. 



Now what is the roller's object ? Would she go to the 

 length of preparing preserves for her own use ? Obviously 

 not : no insect, where itself alone is concerned, devotes 

 such care and patience to the preparation of food. It 

 is only in view of the family that it hoards so indus- 

 triously. The Rhynchites' cigar forms the future dowry. 



Let us unroll it. Here, between the layers of the scroll, 

 is an egg ; often there are two, three, or even four. They 

 are oval, pale-yellow and lil^e fine drops of amber. Their 

 adhesion to the leaf is very slight ; the least jerk loosens 

 them. They are distributed without order, pushed more 

 or less deeply in the thickness of the cigar and always 

 isolated, singly. We find them in the centre of the scroll, 

 almost at the corner where the rolling begins ; we come 

 upon them between the different layers and even near 

 the edge which is sealed in glue with the signet of the 

 rostrum. 



Without interrupting her work on the scroll, without 

 relaxing the tension of her claws, the mother has laid 

 them between the lips of the fold in formation, as she felt 

 them coming, one by one, duly matured, at the end of 

 her oviduct. She procreates in the midst of her toil in 

 the factory, between the wheels of the machine that would 

 be thrown out of gear if she snatched a moment's rest. 

 Manufacture and laying go hand-in-hand. Short-lived, 

 with but two or three weeks before her and an expensive 

 family to settle, the Rhynchites would fear to waste her 

 time in churching. 



This is not all : on the same leaf, not far from the scroll 

 that is being laboriously rolled, we almost always find the 

 male. What is he doing there, the idler ? Is he watching 



