The Life of the Weevil 



department: on my word as a Rhynchites, 

 all this would seem madness to an animal." 



Thus speaks the Weevil. Let me complete 

 her statement. As the instincts of the three 

 industrial guilds whose history is here related 

 cannot in any way be referred to a common 

 origin, the corresponding Rhynchites, despite 

 their extreme similarity of structure, cannot 

 be ramifications of the same stock. Each 

 race is an independent medal, struck from a 

 special die in the workshop of forms and 

 aptitudes. What will it be then when dis- 

 similarity of form is added to dissimilarity 

 of instincts? 



But enough of philosophizing. Let us 

 make the closer acquaintance of the Sloe- 

 Weevil. At the end of July, fattened to a 

 nicety, the grub leaves its plum-stone and 

 descends into the ground. With its back and 

 forehead it presses back the surrounding dust 

 and makes itself a spherical recess, slightly 

 reinforced with a glue furnished by the 

 builder, to prevent the earth from falling in. 

 Similar preparations for nymphosis and 

 hibernation are made by the Vine-weevil and 

 the Poplar-weevil; but these are more for- 

 ward in their development. Before Septem- 

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