The Life of the Weevil 
fragments of madrepores form a conglomer- 
ation of dead existences. Examined stone 
by stone, my house would resolve itself into 
a reliquary, a rag-fair of ancient things that 
were once alive. 
The rocky stratum from which we extract 
our building-materials in these parts covers 
with its mighty shell the greater portion of 
the neighbouring uplands. Here the quarry- 
man has been digging for none knows how 
many centuries, perhaps since the time when 
Agrippa hewed Cyclopean blocks to form 
the stages and the face of the theatre at 
Orange. And here daily the pick-axe un- 
covers curious fossils. The most remark- 
able of these are teeth, still wonderfully pol- 
ished in the midst of their rough matrix and 
as bright with enamel as in the fresh state. 
Some of them are formidable, three-cor- 
nered, finely jagged at the edges, almost as 
large as a man’s hand. What a yawning 
gulf, a jaw armed with such a set of teeth in 
manifold rows, placed stepwise almost to the 
back of the gullet! What mouthfuls, 
snapped up and lacerated by those notched 
shears! You shiver at the mere thought of 
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