The Sloe-Weevil 



long as sloes or kindred fruits have existed, 

 my race, thriving upon them, has never 

 committed the folly of forsaking them in 

 favour of a leaf. So long as they exist, we 

 shall remain faithful to them; and, if ever 

 they fail us, we shall perish to the last grub." 



The lover of the apricot is no less positive. 

 She, who is so easy to establish in soft pulp, 

 has taken good care not to advise her child- 

 ren to undertake the laborious task of per- 

 forating a shell or rolling a leaf into a cigar. 

 According to the locality and the abundance 

 of the fruit, her boldest innovation has been 

 to pass from the apricot to the plum, the 

 peach, or even the cherry. But how are we 

 to admit that these lovers of fruit-pulp, 

 v/ell satisfied with their rich living, which 

 has always been possible, in the old days and 

 to-day alike, can ever have risked leaving the 

 soft for the hard, the juicy for the dry, the 

 easy for the difficult? 



None of these four is the head of the line. 

 Is the common ancestor then an unknown 

 species, dumped down, perhaps, in the schist- 

 foliations whose venerable archives we began 

 by consulting? Even if he were there, we 

 should be none the wiser. The library of , the 

 203 



