The Life of the Weevil 
department: on my word as a Rhynchites, 
all this would seem madness to an animal.” 
Thus speaks the Weevil. Let me complete 
her statement. As the instincts of the three 
industrial guilds whose history is here related 
cannot in any way be referred to a common 
origin, the corresponding Rhynchites, despite 
their extreme similarity of structure, cannot 
be ramifications of the same stock. Each 
race is an independent medal, struck from a 
special die in the workshop of forms and 
aptitudes. What will it be then when dis- 
similarity of form is added to dissimilarity 
of instincts? 
But enough of philosophizing. Let us 
make the closer acquaintance of the Sloe- 
Weevil. At the end of July, fattened to a 
nicety, the grub leaves its plum-stone and 
descends into the ground. With its back and 
forehead it presses back the surrounding dust 
and makes itself a spherical recess, slightly 
reinforced with a glue furnished by the 
builder, to prevent the earth from falling in. 
Similar preparations for nymphosis and 
hibernation are made by the Vine-weevil and 
the Poplar-weevil; but these are more for- 
ward in their development. Before Septem- 
! 206 
