The Life of the Weevil 
middle of June; and I have in the garden a 
row of early haricots, black Belgian haricots, 
sown for cooking-purposes. Though it 
mean sacrificing the precious vegetable, let 
us loose the terrible destroyer on the mass of 
verdure. The development of the plant is 
at just the right stage, if I may go by what 
the Pea-weevil has already shown me: there 
are plenty of flowers and also of pods, still 
green and of all sizes. 
I put two or three handfuls of my Mail- 
lanne haricots in a plate and place the swarm- 
ing mass full in the sunlight on the edge of 
my bed of beans. I can imagine what will 
happen. The insects which are free and 
those which the stimulus of the sun will soon 
set free will take to their wings. Finding 
the fostering plant close by, they will stop 
and take possession of it. I shall see them 
exploring the pods and flowers and I shall 
not have long to wait before I witness the 
laying. That is how the Pea-Weevil would 
act under similar conditions. 
Well, no: to my confusion, matters do not 
fall out as I foresaw. For a few minutes 
the insects bustle about in the sunlight, open- 
ing and closing their wing-cases to ease the 
280 
