The Life of the Weevil 



me to reply. However, to me the word is 

 explained by the insect's colour. 



The Apoderus is a skinless creature, 

 displaying its naked and bleeding misery. 

 Its colour is vermilion, as bright as sealing- 

 wax. It is like a drop of arterial blood 

 coagulated on the dark green of a leaf. 



To this loud costume, rare among insects, 

 are added other, equally unusual character- 

 istics. The Weevils are all microcephalous. 

 This one exaggerates the absurd dispropor- 

 tion even further: she retains only the 

 indispensable minimum of a head, as though 

 she were trying to do without one altogether. 

 The cranium in which her poor brain is 

 lodged is a paltry, glittering, jet-black speck. 

 In front of this speck is no beak, but a very 

 short, wide snout; behind is an unsightly 

 neck, which one might imagine to have been 

 strangled in a halter. 



Standing high on her legs, clumsy in her 

 gait, she ambles step by step across her leaf, 

 which she pierces with round windows. The 

 material removed is her food. Faith, a 

 strange creature : a reminiscence, may be, of 

 some ancient mould, cast aside by life's 

 progress ! 



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