The Life of the Weevil 



you are welcome to my humble porringer. 

 We shall be friends to the last. 



To-day it is not my intention to extol your 

 deserts : I want to ask you a question, simply 

 out of curiosity. What is your country of 

 origin? Did you come from Central Asia, 

 with the horse-bean and the pea? Did you 

 belong to the collection of seeds which the 

 first pioneers of husbandry handed to us from 

 their garden patch? Were you known to 

 antiquity? 



Here the insect, an impartial and well- 

 informed witness, answers: 



"No, in our parts antiquity did not know 

 the haricot. The precious legumen did not 

 reach our country by the same road as the 

 broad bean. It is a foreigner, introduced 

 into the old continent at a later date." 



The insect's statement merits serious exam- 

 ination, supported as it is by very plausible 

 arguments. Here are the facts. 



Though I have followed agricultural mat- 

 ters closely for many years, I have never 

 seen the haricots attacked by any ravager 

 whatever of the insect series, nor in partic- 

 ular by the Bruchi, the licensed despoilers of 

 leguminous seeds. 



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