The Pea-Weevil: The Larva 
crafty brigandage, exposing the new-born off- 
spring to a thousand fatal accidents. Then 
the mother makes up for the chances of 
destruction by an excessive outpouring of 
eggs. This is the case with the Oil-beetles, 
who, stealing the property of others under 
very parlous conditions, are for that reason 
endowed with prodigious fertility. 
The Bruchus knows neither the fatigues 
of the hard worker, obliged to restrict her 
family, nor the woes of the parasite, obliged 
to go to the other extreme. Without costly 
researches, entirely at her ease, merely by 
strolling in the sun over her favourite plant, 
she can ensure an adequate provision for each 
of her children; she can do this and yet the 
mad creature takes it into her head to over- 
populate the pea-pod, a niggardly baby-farm 
in which the great majority will die of 
starvation. This folly passes my under- 
standing: it clashes so utterly with the usual 
perspicacity of the maternal instinct. 
I am therefore inclined to believe that the 
pea was not the Bruchus’ original share in 
the distribution of the earth’s gifts. It must 
rather have been the bean, one seed of which 
is capable of entertaining half a dozen 
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