The Pea-Weevil: The Eggs 



is laid. Our friend possesses only a short 

 snout, which does capitally for sipping a few 

 sweet mouthfuls, but which is of no value 

 as a boring-tool. 



Therefore the method of installing the 

 family is quite different. Here we see no 

 ingenious preparations, such as the Balanini, 

 the Larini and the Rhynchites showed us. 

 Having no probe among her tools, the 

 mother scatters her eggs in the open, with no 

 protection against the heat of the sun or the 

 inclemencies of the weather. Nothing could 

 be simpler and nothing more dangerous to 

 the germs, in the absence of a special con- 

 stitution made to withstand the alternate 

 trials of heat and cold, drought and wet. 



In the mild sunshine of ten o'clock in the 

 morning, the mother, with a jerky, capri- 

 cious, unmethodical step, runs up and down 

 the chosen pod, first on one and then on the 

 other surface. She protrudes at every 

 instant a short oviscapt, which swings right 

 and left as though to scrape the skin. An 

 egg follows and is abandoned as soon as 

 laid. 



A hasty touch of the oviscapt, first here, 

 then there, on the green skin of the pea-pod; 

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