The Life of the Weevil 



of caskets; with the same bodkin that serves 

 her relatives for fastening the last layer of 

 a leaf-roll, she hollows a little cup in the 

 surface of a shell hard as ivory. The tool 

 that is able to roll a flexible sheet now wears 

 away the invincible and works like a digger's 

 pick-axe. And stranger still: when it has 

 finished its arduous piece of carving, it sets 

 up above the egg a little miracle whose 

 exquisite delicacy we shall have occasion to 

 admire. 



The grub amazes me no less. It changes 

 its diet. When a denizen of the vine and 

 the poplar, it eats a leaf; when a denizen of 

 the sloe, it takes to starchy food. It 

 changes its means of liberation. When they 

 have attained their full growth and the mo- 

 ment comes for them to go underground, the 

 first two have nothing in front of them but a 

 yielding obstacle, the surface layer of the 

 leafy sheath, softened and wasted by decay; 

 the third, like the Nut-weevil, has to pierce 

 a wall of exceptional strength. 



What singular contrasts might we not 



discover in facts of this kind, if we were 



better-acquainted with the habits of the 



Rhynchites group? A fourth example is 



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