The Life of the Weevil 



fectly dry. This will make them easier to 

 beat in order to separate the beans. It is 

 now that the Weevil, finding things as she 

 wants them, begins her laying. By getting 

 in his crop a little late, the peasant gets the 

 marauder into the bargain. 



But the Bruchus attacks more especially 

 the seeds in our stores. Copying the Corn- 

 weevil, who eats the wheat in our granaries 

 and disregards the cereal swaying in the ear, 

 in the same way she abhors the tender bean 

 and prefers to make her home in the peace 

 and darkness of our warehouses. She is a 

 formidable enemy of the corn-chandler rather 

 than of the farmer. 



What a fury of destruction, once the rava- 

 ger is installed amidst our hoards of beans! 

 My flasks proclaim the fact aloud. A single 

 haricot-bean harbours a numerous family, 

 often as many as twenty. And not only one 

 generation exploits it, but quite three or four 

 in the year. So long as any edible matter 

 remains within the skin, so long do new 

 consumers settle down in it, until in the end 

 the haricot becomes a loathsome sugar-plum 

 stuffed with stercoral droppings. The skin, 

 which the grubs refuse to eat, is a sack 

 284 



