The Life of the Weevil 



glass panes of the lantern may not be clean. 

 No matter: his work is not in vain who first 

 recognizes and shows to others one speck of 

 the vast unknown. 



However far our ray of light may pene- 

 trate, the illuminated circle is checked on 

 every side by the barrier of the darkness. 

 Hemmed in by the unfathomable depths of 

 the unknown, let us be satisfied if it be vouch- 

 safed to us to enlarge by a span the narrow 

 domain of the known. Seekers, all of us, 

 tormented by the desire for knowledge, let 

 us move our lantern from point to point: 

 with the particles explored we shall perhaps 

 be able to piece together a fragment of the 

 picture. 



To-day the shifting of the lantern's rays 

 leads us to the Bear Larinus (L. tirsus, 

 Fabr.), the exploiter of the carline thistles. 

 We must not let this inappropriate name of 

 Bear give us an unfavourable notion of the 

 insect. It is due to the whim of a nomen- 

 clator who, having exhausted his vocabulary, 

 baffled by the never-ending stream of things 

 already named, uses the first word that comes 

 to hand. 



Others, more happily inspired, perceiving 

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