The Life of the Weevil 
way down, holds it there motionless and 
drinks ecstatically. The juice of the sloe 
pours over the edge of the well. 
This affection for the sour sloe is not 
exclusive. In my breeding-jars, even when 
the regulation fruit is there, Rhynchites 
auratus very readily accepts the green cherry 
and also the orchard plum, as yet hardly the 
size of an olive. She refuses absolutely, 
though they are as round and as small as 
sloes, the fruits of the mahaleb cherry, or 
Sainte-Lucie cherry, a wilding frequent in 
the thickets of the neighbourhood. She 
finds their drug-like flavour repellent. 
When the egg is at stake, I cannot induce 
the mother to accept the cultivated plum. 
In time of dearth, the ordinary cherry seems 
to be less repugnant. Whereas the mother’s 
stomach is satisfied with any sort of astringent 
pulp, the grub’s clamours for a sweet kernel 
in a small casket which does not offer too 
much resistance. That of the cherry, sea- 
soned with prussic acid and rather bitter, 
is accepted only with hesitation; that of the 
plum, contained in a stone whose strong walls 
would oppose too great an obstacle first to 
the entry and then to the exit of the grub, 
208 
