The Life of the Weevil 



winter in a state of torpor. The plane- 

 tree, which strips itself of its own initiative 

 during the heat of summer, furnishes ex- 

 cellent shelters for homeless paupers under 

 its patches of loose-hanging bark. I have 

 often found our Pea-thief in one of these 

 winter sanctuaries. Sheltered under the 

 dead covering of the plane, or otherwise 

 protected while the winter raged, she woke 

 from her slumbers at the first kisses of a 

 kindly sun. The almanack of the instincts 

 has taught her; she knows as well as the 

 gardener when the peas are in flower and 

 she comes to her plant more or less from 

 every direction, ambling at a slow pace, but 

 swift in flight. 



A small head, a slender snout, a dress of 

 ashen grey sprinkled with brown, flat wing- 

 cases, a squat, thick-set figure, with two large 

 black dots on the flat of the tail: there you 

 have a rough sketch of my visitor. The 

 van-guard arrives by the end of the first 

 fortnight in May. 



The Weevils settle on the flowers, which 



are like so many white Butterflies' wings: I 



see some installed at the foot of the upper 



petal, I see some hidden in the casket of the 



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