The Life of the Weevil 



and dead blades of the Gramineae. Gener- 

 ally, however, they occupy the little twigs of 

 the mullein, stripped of their bark and 

 withered. The adult insect emerges sooner 

 or later in September. The gold-beater's- 

 skin capsule is not torn irregularly, at ran- 

 dom; it is neatly divided into two equal 

 parts, like the two halves of a soap-box. 



Has the enclosed insect gnawed the casing 

 with its patient tooth and made a fissure 

 along the equator? No, for the edges of 

 either hemisphere are perfectly clean-cut. 

 There must, therefore, have been a circular 

 line ready to facilitate the opening. All that 

 the insect had to do was to hunch its back 

 and give a slight push, in order to unfasten 

 the roof of its cabin all in one piece and set 

 itself free. 



I can just see this line of easy rupture on 

 certain intact capsules. It is a faint line ring- 

 ing the equator. What does the insect do 

 beforehand to contrive that its cell shall open 

 in this way? A humble plant, flowering 

 early in the spring, the blue or scarlet pim- 

 pernel, has also its soap-box, its pyxidium, 

 which splits easily into two hemispheres 

 when the time comes- for the seed to be scat- 

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