The Pea-Weevil : The Larva 



crafty brigandage, exposing the new-born off- 

 spring to a thousand fatal accidents. Then 

 the mother makes up for the chances of 

 destruction by an excessive outpouring of 

 eggs. This is the case with the Oil-beetles, 

 who, stealing the property of others under 

 very parlous conditions, are for that reason 

 endowed with prodigious fertility. 



The Bruchus knows neither the fatigues 

 of the hard worker, obliged to restrict her 

 family, nor the woes of the parasite, obliged 

 to go to the other extreme. Without costly 

 researches, entirely at her ease, merely by 

 strolling in the sun over her favourite plant, 

 she can ensure an adequate provision for each 

 of her children; she can do this and yet the 

 mad creature takes it into her head to over- 

 populate the pea-pod, a niggardly baby-farm 

 in which the great majority will die of 

 starvation. This folly passes my under- 

 standing: it clashes so utterly with the usual 

 perspicacity of the maternal instinct. 



I am therefore inclined to believe that the 

 pea was not the Bruchus' original share in 

 the distribution of the earth's gifts. It must 

 rather have been the bean, one seed of which 

 is capable of entertaining half a dozen 

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