The Life of the Weevil 



way down, holds it there motionless and 

 drinks ecstatically. The juice of the sloe 

 pours over the edge of the well. 



This affection for the sour sloe is not 

 exclusive. In my breeding-jars, even when 

 the regulation fruit is there, Rhynchites 

 auratus very readily accepts the green cherry 

 and also the orchard plum, as yet hardly the 

 size of an olive. She refuses absolutely, 

 though they are as round and as small as 

 sloes, the fruits of the mahaleb cherry, or 

 Sainte-Lucie cherry, a wilding frequent in 

 the thickets of the neighbourhood. She 

 finds their drug-like flavour repellent. 



When the egg is at stake, I cannot induce 

 the mother to accept the cultivated plum. 

 In time of dearth, the ordinary cherry seems 

 to be less repugnant. Whereas the mother's 

 stomach is satisfied with any sort of astringent 

 pulp, the grub's clamours for a sweet kernel 

 in a small casket which does not offer too 

 much resistance. That of the cherry, sea- 

 soned with prussic acid and rather bitter, 

 is accepted only with hesitation; that of the 

 plum, contained in a stone whose strong walls 

 would oppose too great an obstacle first to 

 the entry and then to the exit of the grub, 

 208 



