The Old Weevils 
class them among the obtuse, among 
creatures deprived of industry. These 
surmises will not be greatly belied. 
Though the Weevil be but little glorified 
by his talents, this is no reason for despising 
him. As we learn from the lacustrian 
schists, he was in the van of the insects with 
the armoured wing-cases; he was long stages 
ahead of those which were working out new 
forms within the limits of the possible. He 
speaks to us of primitive shapes, sometimes 
so quaint; he is in his own little world what 
the bird with the toothed mandibles and the 
saurran with the horned eyebrows are in a 
higher world. 
In ever-thriving legions, he has come down 
to us without changing his characteristics. 
He is to-day as he was in the youth of the 
continents: the pictures on the chalky slates 
proclaim the fact aloud. Under any such 
picture I would venture to write the name 
of the genus, sometimes even of the species. 
Permanence of instinct must go with 
permanence of form. By consulting the 
modern Weevil we shall therefore obtain a 
chapter closely approximate to the biology of 
his predecessors at the time when Provence 
21 
