The Botanical Instinct 
tress of chopped hairs, makes itself a defen- 
sive pitcher, a donjon-keep, with the shellac 
prepared by its intestine! 
When the transformation is accomplished, 
what perspicacity on the part of the inexpe- 
rienced insect, when it abandons its cosy 
home to seek a refuge under the rude shelter 
of the stones, foreseeing the winter which 
will ruin the natal villa! We possess the al- 
manac of the past, telling us of the almanac 
of the future. The insect, with no records 
of the vicissitudes of the seasons; the insect, 
born in the dog-days, in the blazing heat of 
summer: the insect feels instinctively that 
this period of solar intoxication will not last; 
it knows, though it has never seen it happen, 
that its house is doomed soon to collapse; and 
it makes off before the roof falls in. 
For a Weevil, this is fine, magnificent. 
We might well envy the creature’s wisdom 
in being thus awake to the calamities of 
the future. 
However devoid of industry she may be, 
the least-gifted mother none the less submits 
an insoluble problem for our consideration. 
What is it that leads her to lay her eggs at 
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