The Life of the Weevil 
grub attacks the base of the acorn first, the 
reply would appear to be as follows: the 
egg is laid at the entrance of the tunnel, on 
the surface; and the grub, crawling along 
the gallery dug by the mother, of its own 
accord reaches the point where its infant’s- 
food exists. 
At first, before I possessed adequate 
particulars, this explanation was also my 
own; but the mistake was soon dispelled. I 
pluck the acorn when the mother withdraws 
after for an instant applying the tip of her 
abdomen to the orifice of the tunnel which 
her rostrum has just bored. The egg, so it 
seems, must be there, at the entrance, close 
to the surface. . . . But not at all: it is not 
there; it is at the other end of the passage! 
If I dared to take the liberty, I should say 
that it has gone down it as a stone falls to 
the bottom of a well. 
We must hasten to abandon this silly 
notion: the tunnel is infinitely narrow and 
blocked with shavings, so that any such 
descent would be impossible. Besides, 
according to the direction of the stalk, which 
may be either downwards or upwards, a fall 
II2 
