The Sloe-Weevil 
varnish. As for the rest of the fruit, I leave 
it as it was. 
This done, let us wait, but leave the sloes 
in the open air, as they are, on the bush. 
There the gummy concretions will not grow 
soft—which would not fail to happen in a 
glass jar—merely by means of the moisture 
supplied by the fruits themselves. 
By the end of July, the sloes left in their 
natural state give me the first emigrants; 
the exodus goes on through part of August. 
The means of exit is a round hole, very 
cleanly cut, similar to that made by the Nut- 
weevil. Just like the grub of the last- 
named, the emigrant passes itself through 
the draw-plate and releases itself by a feat 
of gymnastics in which it dilates the part of 
the body already extracted with the humours 
forced out of the part still imprisoned. 
The exit-door is sometimes one with the 
narrow entrance; more often it is beside it; 
but it is never, absolutely never, outside the 
bare space that forms the bottom of the 
crater. The grub seems to loathe finding 
the soft pulp of the sloe in front of its man- 
dibles. Admirably adapted for chiselling 
hard wood, the tool would perhaps become 
221 
