The Haricot-Weevil 
after the manner of the pea, the lentil and 
the others. The smallest leguminous seed, 
often no bigger than a pin’s head, feeds its 
Bruchus, a dwarf that nibbles it patiently 
and hollows it into a dwelling, whereas the 
plump and exquisite haricot is spared! 
This strange immunity can have but one 
explanation: like the potato, like maize, the 
haricot is a present from the New World. 
It arrived in Europe unaccompanied by the 
insect that battens on it regularly in its 
native land; it found in our fields other seed- 
eaters, which, because they did not know it, 
despised it. In the same way, the potato 
and maize are respected over here, unless 
their American consumers are imported with 
them by accident. 
The insect’s report is confirmed by the 
negative evidence of the ancient classics: the 
haricot never appears on the rustic table of 
their peasants. In Vergil’s second Eclogue, 
Thestylis is preparing the reapers’ repast: 
Thestylis et rapido fessis messoribus estu 
Allia serpyllumque herbas contundit olentes.1 
1 “And Thestylis wild thyme and garlic beats 
For harvest hinds, o’erspent with toil and heats.”— 
Pastorals, ii, Dryden’s translation. 
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