PREHISTORIC BOTANISTS. 135 
foliage of the common locust and viscid locust and thorny acacia 
and wistaria, these being the food plants commonly given by the 
authorities; but the descendant of this intellectual larva also in- 
cludes the delicate wild pea-nut vine, and ground-nut vine, and 
bush clover, Hedysarum, garden bean, and all the Desmodiums in 
its order of the Legumes for its bill of fare, for I have discovered 
the species on all these plants. 
There are many other insects for which the Pea family pos- 
sesses special attraction. There is the tiny pea-weevil, a repre- 
sentative of a tribe of beetles whose early existence is spent 
within the ripening seeds—doubtless a common ingredient in our 
appetizing dish of green peas. I remember once reading of a 
Baltimore oriole having been shot for “eating peas,” the con- 
tents of the craw afterwards disclosing only such peas as were 
infested with the weevil. This diminutive insect, indicated in 
our “random posy,” probes the pod shortly after the withering of 
the blossom, and lays its eggs therein. The young immediately 
penetrate the peas, and there fulfil their existence, emerging in 
the following spring as perfect beetles. Our little “wild” rattle. 
box has a similar tenant, which upon its escape leaves a clean, 
round hole in the black pods of autumn, these tenanted pods, by 
some strange consciousness, generally remaining intact, while the 
perfect specimens have burst and scattered their seed. 
In the same illustration may be seen a singular rolled leaf 
upon a hazel branch, and concerning which I will quote a page 
from my notes of years ago: “Those small rolled brown packets 
upon the hazels again! Shall I ever solve them—precious goods 
done up in small parcels, but by what insect, and how? This 
mysterious bundle committed to the hazel has been a poser to me 
all my life, I never yet having been able to discover the artist at 
its work—for artist it is indeed. I found to-day a number of the 
prize packages freshly done up, the folded leaf yet green though 
half severed by the teeth of the insect, and hanging pendent to 
the stem. A tiny yellow egg had been deposited at the tip of 
the leaf—as shown by analysis of unrolling—and the leaf then 
folded in half at mid-vein, then rolled from tip upward to stem, 
