The Life of the Weevil 
blue thistle possessed the secret of asphalt 
long before man did. Better still: to put 
its method into practice with a rapidity and 
economy unknown to the Babylonian con- 
tractors, it had and still has its own well of 
bitumen. 
What can this viscous substance be? As 
I have explained, it appears in opal drops at 
the waste-pipe of the intestine. Becoming 
hard and resinous on contact with the air, it 
turns a tawny red, so much so that the inside 
of the cell looks at first as though coated 
with quince-jelly. The final hue is a dull- 
brown, against which pale specks of mixed 
ligneous refuse stand out sharply. 
The first idea that occurs to one’s mind 
is that the Weevil’s glue must be some special 
secretion, not unlike silk, but emerging from 
the opposite pole. Can there be actually 
glands secreting a viscous fluid in the grub’s 
hinder part? I open a larva which is busily 
building. Things are not as I imagined: 
there is no glandular apparatus attached to 
the lower end of the digestive canal. 
Nor is there anything to be seen in the 
ventricle. Only the Malpighian tubes, which . 
are rather large and four in number, reveal, 
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