The Vine-Weevil 



return many times, inspired by the same 

 intentions, which are rarely scorned. I need 

 not insist further on these pairings, which 

 are repeated indefinitely and run counter to 

 the classic data on one of the nicest points 

 of insect physiology. To impress the seal of 

 life upon the hundreds of eggs of the mother 

 Bombyx, 1 or the thirty thousand or more of 

 the mother Bee, the father exerts only one 

 direct intervention. The Weevil claims the 

 privilege of intervening for almost every egg. 

 I leave the curious problem to the experts. 



Let us unroll a recently-made cigar. The 

 eggs, fine, amber-coloured beads, are scat- 

 tered, one by one, at very different depths in 

 the spiral. As a rule, I find several, from 

 five to eight. The multiplicity of fellow- 

 feasters, in both the rolled poplar-leaf and 

 the rolled vine-leaf, bears witness to extreme 

 frugality. 



The two leaf-rollers are quickly hatched: 

 the grub is born in five or six days' time. 

 Then the observer begins to be faced with 

 the same difficulties that beset a prentice 

 hand in the rearing of larvae; and these 

 difficulties are all the more exasperating in 



1 The Silk-worm Moth. Translator's Note. 

 163 



