THE OLD WEE\n[LS 183 



Observe, also, the smallness of the head, a bulb that 

 hardly swells be^'ond the base of the snout. What can 

 it have inside ? A very poor nervous equipment, the sign 

 of exceedingly limited instincts. Before seeing them at 

 work, we make small account of these microcephali, in 

 respect of intelligence ; w^e class them among the obtuse, 

 among creatures bereft of working capacity. These sur- 

 mises will not be very largely upset. 



Though the Curculio be but little glorified by his talents, 

 this is no reason for scorning him. As we learn from the 

 lacustrian schists, he was in the van of the insects with the 

 armoured wing-cases ; he was long stages ahead of the 

 workers in incubation within the limits of possibility. 

 He speaks to us of primitive forms, sometimes so quaint ; 

 he is, in his own little world, what the bird with the 

 toothed jaws and the Saurian with the horned eyebrows 

 are in a higher world. 



In ever-thriving legions, he has been handed down to us 

 without changmg his characteristics. He is to-day as he 

 was in the old times of the continents : the prints in the 

 chalky slates proclaim the fact aloud. Under any such 

 print, I would venture to write the name of the genus, 

 sometimes even of the species. 



Permanence of instinct must go with permanence of 

 form. By consulting the modern Curculionid, therefore, 

 we shall obtain a very approximate chapter upon the 

 biology of his predecessors, at the time when Provence 

 had great lakes filled with crocodiles and palm-trees on 

 their banks wherewith to shade them. The history of 

 the present will teach us the history of the past. 



