The Pea-Weevil: The Eggs 
who, though exempted from the labour of 
the fields, will nevertheless settle in our 
granaries and with her pointed beak nibble 
the heap of corn, grain by grain, to the husk. 
For us who dig and weed and water, bent 
with fatigue and burnt by the heat of the day, 
nature swells the pea-pods; she swells them 
also for the Pea-weevil, who, doing no 
gardener’s work, will all the same take her 
share of the crop at her own time, when the 
earth is joyful with the new life of spring. 
Let us watch the actions of this zealous 
tax-collector, who levies her tithes in green 
peas. I, a well-meaning rate-payer, will let 
her have her way: it is precisely for her 
benefit that I have sown a few rows of the 
beloved plant in my enclosure. With no 
other invitation from me than this modest 
seed-plot, she arrives punctually in the course 
of May. She has learnt that in this stony 
soil, unfitted for market-gardening, peas are 
flourishing for the first time. And she has 
hastened thither to exercise her privileges 
as an entomological revenue-officer. 
Whence does she come? It is impossible 
to say exactly. She has come from some 
refuge or other where she has spent the 
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