The Iris-Weevil 
to a serious thinning, nevertheless produce 
excessive families without taking into account 
the resources at their disposal. 
For lack of room on the seed-capsule 
of the iris, of the ten guests in one shell four 
or five at most will survive. As for the 
disappearance of the rest, we need not seek 
the cause in the massacring of rivals, though 
the struggle for existence is fruitful in such 
crimes. The Weevil’s grub is too pacific a 
creature to wring the neck of those which get 
inits way. I prefer the explanation which I 
gave in the case of the Pea-weevil. The 
late-comers, finding the best places taken, 
allow themselves to die without striving to 
dislodge the others. For those first installed, 
a plentiful board and life; for those which 
lag behind, famine and death. 
In August the adults begin to appear 
outside the seed-pods of the iris. The larva 
has not the talent which the Pea-weevil’s 
grub possesses: it does not, by patient 
nibbling, make any sort of preparation for 
the exodus. It is the perfect insect itself 
that contrives the exit-way, which consists of 
a round hole Bored through the tough husk 
of the seed and the thick wall of the fruit. 
209 
