The Vine-Weevil 
return many times, inspired by the same 
intentions, which are rarely scorned. I need 
not insist further on these pairings, which 
are repeated indefinitely and run counter to 
the classic data on one of the nicest points 
of insect physiology. To impress the seal of 
life upon the hundreds of eggs of the mother 
Bombyx,’ or the thirty thousand or more of 
the mother Bee, the father exerts only one 
direct intervention. The Weevil claims the 
privilege of intervening for almost every egg. 
I leave the curious problem to the experts. 
Let us unroll a recently-made cigar. The 
eggs, fine, amber-coloured beads, are scat- 
tered, one by one, at very different depths in 
the spiral. As a rule, I find several, from 
five to eight. The multiplicity of fellow- 
feasters, in both the rolled poplar-leaf and 
the rolled vine-leaf, bears witness to extreme 
frugality. 
The two leaf-rollers are quickly hatched: 
the grub is born in five or six days’ time. 
Then the observer begins to be faced with 
the same difficulties that beset a prentice 
hand in the rearing of larve; and these 
difficulties are all the more exasperating in 
1 The Silk-worm Moth.—Translator’s Note. 
163 
