The Life of the Weevil 
glass prisons. Gaseous exchanges are 
effected, since the kernel, itself a living body, 
continues to thrive. But what suffices to 
maintain the life of a seed must be insufh- 
cient for the much more active life of the 
insect. The larva of the Weevil, during the 
few weeks which it spends nibbling its kernel, 
would thus be in great jeopardy if it had no 
other resources for breathing than the air in 
the sloe-stone, so limited in quantity and so 
scantily renewed. 
Everything seems to prove that if the air- 
hole, the work of its chisel, were to be 
plugged with a drop of gum, the recluse 
would perish, or at least drag out a languish- 
ing existence and would be incapable of mi- 
grating underground at the proper time. 
This suspicion is worth confirming. 
I therefore prepare a handful of sloes; I 
myself bring about what would have hap- 
pened naturally but for the mother’s pre- 
cautions. I deluge the crater and its central 
cone with a drop of thick solution of gum 
arabic. My sticky preparation takes the 
place of the product of the sloe-bush. The 
drop hardens; I add others until the top of 
the cone disappears in the thickness of the 
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