The Life of the Weevil 



selection, takes up her stand on the stalk 

 of the leaf and there patiently inserts her 

 rostrum, turning it with a persistency that 

 denotes the great importance of this stiletto- 

 thrust. A little wound opens, a fairly deep 

 wound, which soon becomes a speck of decay. 



It is done : the conduits are cut and allow 

 only a small quantity of sap to ooze into the 

 edge. At the injured point the leaf yields 

 under its own weight; it droops perpend- 

 icularly, becomes slightly withered and 

 soon acquires the requisite flexibility. The 

 moment has come for operating on it. 



That stiletto-thrust represents, though 

 much less scientifically, the prick of the 

 Hunting Wasp's sting. 1 The latter wants 

 for her offspring a prey now dead, now 

 paralysed: she knows, with the thoroughness 

 of a consummate anatomist, at what points 

 it behoves her to insert her lancet to procure 

 either sudden death or merely a suppression 

 of movement. The Rhynchites requires for 

 hers a leaf rendered flexible, half-alive, 



1 Cf. The Hunting Wasps: passim; also More Hunting 

 Wasps, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander 

 Teixeira de Mattos: passim. Translator's Note. 

 144 



