The Life of the Weevil 



window-sill. A couple has just broken apart. 

 Careless of what will happen next, the male 

 retires to browse for a while, not on the blue 

 thistle-heads, which are choice morsels re- 

 served for the young, but on the leaves, 

 where a superficial scraping enables the beak 

 to remove some frugal mouthfuls. The 

 mother remains where she is and continues 

 the boring already commenced. 



The rostrum is driven right into the ball 

 of florets and disappears from sight. The 

 insect hardly moves, taking at most a few 

 slow strides now in one direction, now in 

 another. What we see is not the work of a 

 gimlet, which twists, but of an awl, which 

 sinks steadily downwards. The mandibles, 

 the sharp shears affixed to the implement, 

 bite and dig; and that is all. In the end, the 

 rostrum used as a lever, that is to say, bend- 

 ing upon its base, uproots and lifts the de- 

 tached florets and pushes them a little way 

 outwards. This must cause the slight un- 

 evenness which we perceive at any inhabited 

 point. The work of excavation lasts a good 

 quarter of an hour. 



Then the mother turns about, finds the 



