108 THE NATURE-STUDY OF PLANTS 
therefore any of my readers should ever come across 
evidence of either of them I hope they will record 
the discovery, which would interest 
; a great many people in addition to 
ee the author, especially as both pests 
Frc. 438.—A single are known to prey upon other kinds 
De eee Gee of Cranesbill and, on the Continent, 
Stinging Nettle, On the Herb Robert too. 
x 7. It seems then certain that our 
plant suffers but little from the ills to which vege- 
table flesh is heir. Slugs and snails eat the pretty 
pink petals after they have fallen, and the Great 
Yellow Slug devours the decaying leaves; but of 
course neither of these operations can do any harm, 
on the contrary they help the hungry and illustrate 
the co-operative nature of the Scheme of Creation to 
which I refer so frequently. 
I began to think that the Herb Robert had to all 
intents and purposes solved 
the problem of complete 
protection, but after all it 
has at any rate one de- 
pendent. There is the 
grub of a beetle, a weevil, 
known as Cceeliodes that 
habitually feeds upon it. 
Jt is not by any means 
common in England, and : 
it is one of those small 5... 44-The Weevil Beotle 
maggots that are seldom (Caeliodes), whose Larva is an 
seen because it lives and PA coder a 
feeds inside the plant in- a 
stead of attacking it from the outside; it is much 
more easy to get hold of the beetle itself, which can 

