The Haricot-Weevil 



mechanism of flight; then one by one they 

 fly off. They mount high In the luminous 

 air; they grow smaller and smaller and are 

 soon lost to view. My persevering attention 

 meets with not the slightest success : not one 

 of the fly-aways settles on the haricots. 



After tasting the joys of liberty to the full, 

 will they return this evening, to-morrow, the 

 day after? No, they do not return. All 

 the week, at favourable hours, I inspect the 

 rows of beans, flower by flower, pod by pod; 

 never a Weevil do I see, never an egg. And 

 yet it is a propitious time of year, for at 

 this moment the mothers imprisoned in my 

 jars are laying their eggs profusely on the 

 dry haricots. 



Let us try at another season. I have two 

 other beds which I have had sown with the 

 late haricot, the red cocot, partly for the 

 use of the household, but principally for the 

 sake of the Weevils. Arranged in conveni- 

 ent rows, the two beds will yield their crops 

 one in August, the other in September and 

 later. 



I repeat with the red haricot the experi- 

 ment which I made with the black. On 



several occasions, at opportune times, I 



281 



