The Life of the Weevil 



"On the very spot where you stand med- 

 itating upon a splinter of stone, an arm of 

 the sea once stretched, filled with war-like 

 devourers and peaceful victims. A deep in- 

 let occupied the future site of the Rhone 

 valley. Its billows broke not far from your 

 house." 



Here in fact are the cliffs of the shore, 

 in such a state of preservation that, when I 

 concentrate my thoughts, I seem to hear the 

 thunder of curving billows. Sea-urchins, 

 Lithodomi,^ Petricolae,^ Pholades ^ have left 

 their signatures upon the rock: hemispherical 

 recesses large enough to contain one's fist; 

 circular cells; cabins with a narrow opening 

 through which the recluse received the in- 

 coming water, laden with food and constantly 

 renewed. Sometimes the erstwhile occupant 

 is there, mineralized, intact to the smallest 

 details of his strise, of his scales, a brittle 

 ornamentation; more often he has dis- 

 appeared, fallen into decay, and his house 

 has filled with a fine sea-mud, hardened into 

 a chalky kernel. 



In this quiet inlet, collected by some eddy 



lA form of Mussel. — Translator's Note. 



^Another genus of bivalve mollucs. — Translator's Note. 



^Piddocks. — Translator's Note. 



10 



