THE SPOTTED LARINUS

The Life of the Weevil by Jean-Henri Fabre and Alexander Teixeira de Mattos, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. THE SPOTTED LARINUS

Chapter II. THE SPOTTED LARINUS

Larinus is a vague term, which cannot teach us anything. The word sounds well. It is something not to afflict the ear with raucous spittings; but the prentice reader wants more than this. He expects the name to give him, in euphonious syllables, a brief description of the insect named. This would help to guide him in the midst of the vast multitude.

I cordially agree with him, while recognizing what an arduous task it would be to devise a rational nomenclature that would give the beasts the forenames and surnames which they deserve. Our ignorance condemns us to be vague and often nonsensical. Let us consider a case in point.

What does Larinus mean? The Greek lexicon tells us: Λαρινός, fatty, fat. Has the insect which is the subject of this chapter any right to such a description? Not at all. It is corpulent, I agree, as are the Weevils generally, but does not more than another deserve a certificate of obesity.

Let us look a little deeper. Λαρός means pleasant to the taste, pleasant to the eye, dainty, sweet. Are we there now? Not yet. To be sure, the Larinus is not without daintiness, but how many among the long-nosed Beetles excel him in beauty of costume! Our osier-beds provide nourishment for some that are flecked with flowers of sulphur, some that are laced with Chinese white, some that are powdered with malachite-green. They leave on our fingers a scaly dust that looks as though it were gathered from a Butterfly’s wing. Our vines and poplar-trees have some that surpass copper pyrites in metallic lustre; the equatorial countries furnish specimens of unparalleled magnificence, true gems beside which the marvels of our jewel-cases would pale. No, the modest Larinus has no right to be extolled as superb. The title of dandy must be awarded to others, in the beak-bearing family, rather than to him.

If his godfather, better-informed, had named him after his habits, he would have called him an artichoke-thief. The group of the Larini, in fact, establishes its offspring in the fleshy base of the flowers of the Carduaceæ, the thistle, the cotton-thistle, the centaury, the carline thistle and others, which, in structure and flavour, recall more or less remotely the artichoke of our tables. This is its special province. The Larinus is charged with the thinning out of the fierce, encroaching thistle.

Glance at the pink, white or blue heads of a Carduacea. Long-beaked insects swarm, awkwardly diving into the mass of florets. What are [20]they? Larini. Open the head, split its fleshy base. Surprised by the air and by the light, plump, white, legless grubs sway to and fro, each isolated in a small recess. What are these grubs? Larinus-larvæ.

Here accuracy calls for a reservation. A few other Weevils, related to those whose history we are considering, are also partial, on behalf of their family, to the fleshy receptacles with the artichoke flavour. No matter: the species that take the lead in numbers, frequency and handsome proportions are the authorized exterminators of the thistle-heads. Now the reader knows as much as I can tell him.

All the summer, all the autumn, until the cold weather sets in, the most ornamental of our southern thistles grows profusely by the roadside. Its pretty, blue flowers, gathered into round, prickly heads, have won it the botanical name of Echinops, in allusion to the Hedgehog rolled into a ball. It is indeed like a Hedgehog. Better still: it is like a Sea-urchin stuck upon a stalk and turned into an azure globe.

Beneath a screen of star-shaped flowerets the shapely tuft hides the thousand daggers of its scales. Whosoever touches it with an incautious finger is surprised to encounter such aggressiveness beneath an innocent appearance. The leaves that go with it, green above, white and fluffy underneath, do at least warn the inexperienced: they are [21]divided into pointed lobes, each of which bears an extremely sharp needle at its tip.

This thistle is the patrimony of the Spotted Larinus (L. maculosus, Sch.), whose back is powdered with cloudy yellow patches. The Weevil browses very sparingly on the leaves. June is not yet over before she is exploiting the heads, green at this time and the size of peas, or at most of cherries, with a view to establishing her family. For two or three weeks the work of colonization continues on globes which grow bluer and larger day by day.

Couples are formed, very peaceably, in the glad morning sunlight. The nuptial preliminaries, resembling the embraces of jointed levers, display a rustic awkwardness. With his fore-legs the male Weevil masters his spouse; with his hinder tarsi, gently and at intervals, he strokes her sides. Alternating with these soft caresses are sudden jolts and impetuous jerks. Meanwhile, the object of these attentions, in order to lose no time, works at the thistle-head with her beak and prepares the lodging for her egg. Even in the midst of her wedding the care of the family leaves this laborious insect no repose.

What precisely is the use of the Weevil’s rostrum, this paradoxical nose, such as no carnival mummer would venture to wear? We shall find out at leisure, taking our own time.

My prisoners, enclosed in a wire-gauze cover, [22]are working in the sunlight on my window-sill. A couple has just broken apart. Careless of what will happen next, the male retires to browse for a while, not on the blue thistle-heads, which are choice morsels reserved for the young, but on the leaves, where a superficial scraping enables the beak to remove some frugal mouthfuls. The mother remains where she is and continues the boring already commenced.

The rostrum is driven right into the ball of florets and disappears from sight. The insect hardly moves, taking at most a few slow strides now in one direction, now in another. What we see is not the work of a gimlet, which twists, but of an awl, which sinks steadily downwards. The mandibles, the sharp shears affixed to the implement, bite and dig; and that is all. In the end, the rostrum used as a lever, that is to say, bending upon its base, uproots and lifts the detached florets and pushes them a little way outwards. This must cause the slight unevenness which we perceive at any inhabited point. The work of excavation lasts a good quarter of an hour.

Then the mother turns about, finds the opening of the shaft with the tip of her belly and lays the egg. But how? The pregnant insect’s abdomen is far too large and too blunt to enter the narrow passage and deposit the egg directly at the bottom. A special tool, a probe carrying the egg to the point required, is therefore absolutely needed here. [23]But the insect does not possess one that shows; and things take place so swiftly and discreetly that I see nothing of that kind unsheathed.

No matter, I am positively convinced of it: to place the egg at the bottom of the shaft which the rostrum has just bored, the mother must possess a guide-rod, a rigid tube, kept in reserve, invisible, among her tools. We shall return to this curious subject when more conclusive instances arise.

One first point is gained: the Weevil’s rostrum, that nose which at first sight was deemed grotesque, is in reality an instrument of maternal love. The extravagant becomes the everyday, the indispensable. Since it carries mandibles and other mouth parts at its tip, its function is to eat, that is self-evident; but to this function is added another of greater importance. The fantastic stylet prepares the way for the eggs; it is the oviduct’s collaborator.

And this implement, the emblem of the guild, is so honourable that the father does not hesitate to sport it, though himself incapable of digging the family cells. Like his consort, he too carries an awl, but a smaller one, as befits the modesty of his rôle.

A second point becomes clear. In order to insert the egg at convenient points, it is the rule for the insect to possess an implement with two functions, an implement which at the same time opens the passage and guides the eggs along it. [24]This is the case with the Cicada,1 the Grasshopper,2 the Saw-fly, the Leucospis3 and the Ichneumon-fly,4 all of whom carry a sabre, a saw or a probe at the tip of the abdomen.

The Weevil divides the work and apportions it between two implements, one of which, in front, is the perforating auger, and the other, behind, hidden in the body and unsheathed at the moment of the laying, is the guiding tube. Except in the Weevils, this curious mechanism is unknown to me.

When the egg is placed in position—and this is quickly done, thanks to the preliminary work of the drill—the mother returns to the point colonized. She packs the disturbed materials a little, she lightly pushes back the uprooted florets; then, without taking further trouble, she goes away. She sometimes even dispenses with these precautions.

A few hours later, I examine the heads exploited, which may be recognized by a certain number of faded and slightly projecting patches, each of which shelters an egg. With the point of my penknife I extract the little, faded bundle and open it. At the base, in a small round cell, hollowed [25]out of the substance of the central globule, the receptacle of the thistle-head, is the egg, fairly large, yellow and oval.

It is enveloped in a brown substance derived from the tissues injured by the mother’s auger and from the exudations of the wound, which have set like cement. This envelope rises into an irregular cone and ends in the withered florets. In the centre of the tuft we generally see an opening, which might well be a ventilating-shaft.

The number of eggs entrusted to a single head may easily be ascertained without destroying the cells: all that we need do is to count the yellow blurs unevenly distributed over the blue background. I have found five, six and more, even in a head smaller than a cherry. Each covers an egg. Do all these eggs come from the same mother? It is possible. At the same time, they may be of diverse origin, for it is not unusual to surprise two mothers both occupied in laying eggs on the same globe.

Sometimes the points worked upon almost touch. The mother, it seems, has a very restricted numerical sense and is incapable of keeping count of the occupants. She drives her probe into the florets, unheeding that the place beside her is already taken. As a rule there are too many, far too many feasters at the niggardly banquet of the blue thistle. Three at most will find enough to live on. The first-comers will thrive; the [26]laggards will perish for lack of room at the common table.

The grubs are hatched in a week: little white atoms with red heads to them. Suppose them to be three in number, as frequently happens. What have the little creatures in their larder? Next to nothing. The echinops is an exception among the Carduaceæ. Its flowers do not rest upon a fleshy receptacle expanded into a heart, like the artichoke’s. Let us open one of the heads. In the centre, as a common support, is a round firm nucleus, a globe hardly as large as a peppercorn, fixed on the top of a little column which is a continuation of the axis of the stem. That is all.

A scanty, a very scanty provision for three consumers. In bulk there is not enough to furnish the first few meals of a single grub; still less is there enough—for it is very tough and unsubstantial—to provide for those fine layers of fat which make the grub look as sleek as butter and are employed as reserves during the transformation.

Nevertheless, it is in this paltry globule and the small column which supports it that the three boarders find, their whole life long, the wherewithal to feed and grow. Not a bite is given elsewhere; and even so the attack is delivered with extreme discretion. The food is rasped and nibbled on the surface and not completely consumed.

To make much out of nothing, to fill three starveling bellies, sometimes four, with a single [27]crumb, would be out of the question. The secret of the food-supply is not contained in the small amount of solid matter that has disappeared. Let us look into this more closely.

I take out a few larvæ which are already fairly well-grown and install dwellings and dwellers in glass tubes. For a long time, with my pocket-lens, I watch the prisoners. I cannot see that they bite into the central knob, which is already damaged, nor the axis, which also has been cut into. From these surfaces, which have been scored since I know not how long; from what appeared to be their daily bread, their mandibles remove not the smallest particle. At most the mouth is applied for a moment to the surface; then it is withdrawn, uneasy and disdainful. It is evident that the ligneous fare, though still quite fresh, does not suit.

The proof is completed by the final result of my experiments. In vain I keep the thistle-heads fresh in glass tubes, plugged with a stopper of wet cotton-wool: my attempts at rearing are not once crowned with success. As soon as the head is removed from the plant, its inhabitants begin to die of starvation, whether I intervene or whether I do not. They all pine away in the heart of their native globe and at last perish, no matter in what receptacle—test-tube, flask or tin box—I place my collection. Later, on the other hand, when the feeding-period is over, I shall find it very easy [28]to keep the grubs in good condition and to follow at will their preparations for the nymphosis.

This failure tells me that the larva of the Spotted Larinus does not sustain itself with solid food; it prefers the clear broth of the sap. It taps the cask of its azure cellar, that is to say, it makes a careful gash in the axis of the head as well as in the central nucleus.

From these surface wounds, which are kept open by fresh strokes of the plane as soon as a dry scab forms upon them, it laps the sap of the thistle, which oozes up from the roots. As long as the blue globe is on its stalk, very much alive, the sap ascends, the broached casks exude their contents and the grub sips the nourishing draught. But, once detached from the stem, cut off from its source of supply, the cellar runs dry. Thereupon the larva promptly dies. This explains the fatal catastrophe of my attempts to rear it.

All that the Larinus-larvæ need is to lick the exudations from a wound. The method employed is henceforth obvious. The new-born grubs, hatched upon the central globe, take their places around its axis, proportioning the distance between them to the number of guests. Each of them peels and slashes with its mandibles the part in front of it, causing the nutritious moisture to exude. If the spring dries up through healing, fresh bites revive it.

But the attack is made with circumspection, [29]The central column and its circular capital form the mainstay of the globe. If too extensively injured, the scaffolding would bend before the wind and bring down the dwelling. Moreover, the conduits of the aqueduct must be respected, if a suitable supply of sap is to be provided until the end. Accordingly, whether three or four in number, the grubs abstain from rasping the surface too deeply.

The cuts, which amount to no more than a judicious paring of the surface, imperil neither the solidity of the structure nor the action of the vessels, so that the blossoms, their plunderers notwithstanding, retain a very healthy appearance. They expand as usual, except that the pretty, blue ground is stained with yellow patches, which grow wider from day to day. At each of these points, a grub is established under the cover of the dead florets. Each blemish marks one diner’s seat at table.

The florets, as we said, have for their common support, for their receptacle, the round knob surmounting the axis. It is on this globule that the grubs begin. They attack a few of the florets at their base, uprooting them without injuring them and thrusting them upwards with a heave of the back. The spot thus cleared is slightly broken into and hollowed out and becomes the first refreshment-bar.

What becomes of the items removed? Are [30]they thrown to the ground as inconvenient rubbish? The tiny creature is careful not to do anything of the kind, which would mean exposing its plump back, a small but enticing morsel, to the eyes of the foe.

Pushed back, the materials cleared away remain intact, still clustered together in their natural position. Not a flake, not a chip falls to earth. By means of a quick-setting, rain-proof glue, the whole of the fragments detached are cemented to the base in a continuous sheaf, so that the blossom is kept intact, save for the yellowish tint of the parts wounded. As the grub increases in size, more florets are cut away and take their place, beside the others, in the roof, which swells by degrees and ends by bulging out.

Thus a quiet dwelling is obtained, sheltered from wind and weather and the heat of the sun. Within, the hermit sips at his cask in safety; he waxes big and fat. I suspected it, that the larva would be able to make up by its own industry for the rough-and-ready installation of the egg! Where maternal care is lacking, the grub possesses special talents as a safeguard.

Nevertheless, nothing in the grub of the Spotted Larinus reveals the skilful builder of thatched huts. It is a little sausage of a creature, a rusty yellow in colour and bent into a hook. There is not a vestige of legs; the whole equipment consists of the mouth and the opposite end, an active [31]auxiliary. What can this little roll of rancid butter be capable of doing? To observe it at work is easy enough at the propitious moment.

In the middle of August, when the larva, having achieved its full growth, is busy strengthening and plastering its abode in view of the approaching nymphosis, I half-open a few cells. The hulls opened, but still adhering to the natal blossom, are arranged in a row in a glass tube which will enable me to watch the work without disturbing the worker. I have not long to wait for the result.

In a state of repose, the grub is a hook with the extremities very near together. From time to time I see it bring the two ends into intimate contact and close the circuit. Then—do not let us be shocked by the grub’s procedure: this would mean misconceiving life’s sacred simplicities—then with its mandibles it very neatly gathers from the stercoral orifice a tiny drop the size of an ordinary pin’s head. It is a muddy white liquid, flowing like gum, similar in appearance to the resinous beads that ooze from the horned galls of the turpentine-tree when you break them.

The grub spreads its little drop over the edges of the breach made in its dwelling; it distributes it here and there, very sparingly; it pushes and coaxes it into the gaps. Then, attacking the adjacent florets, it picks out the shreds and chips and bits of hairs.

This does not satisfy it. It rasps the axis and [32]the central nucleus of the blossom, detaching tiny scraps and atoms. A laborious task, for the mandibles are short and cut badly. They tear rather than slice.

All this is distributed over the still fresh cement. This done, the grub bestirs itself most strenuously, bending into a hook and straightening out again; it rolls and glides about its cabin to make the materials amalgamate and to smooth the wall with the pad of its round rump.

When this pressing and polishing is finished, the larva once more curves into a circle. A second white drop appears at the factory-door. The mandibles take hold of the ignominious product as they would of an ordinary mouthful; and the process is repeated as before: the cell is first smeared with glue and then encrusted with ligneous particles.

After thus expending a certain number of trowelfuls of cement, the grub remains motionless; it seems to be abandoning a job too much for its means. Twenty-four hours later, the open hulls are still gaping. An attempt has been made to repair the cell, but not to close it thoroughly. The task is too heavy.

What is lacking? Not the ligneous materials, which can always be obtained from the grub’s surroundings, but the adhesive cement, the factory having closed down. And why has it closed down? The answer is quite simple: because the vessels [33]of the thistle-head detached from its stalk are dry and can no longer furnish the food upon which everything depends.

The curly-bearded Chaldean used to build with bricks of mud baked in the kiln and cemented with bitumen. The Weevil of the blue thistle possessed the secret of asphalt long before man did. Better still: to put its method into practice with a rapidity and economy unknown to the Babylonian contractors, it had and still has its own well of bitumen.

What can this viscous substance be? As I have explained, it appears in opal drops at the waste-pipe of the intestine. Becoming hard and resinous on contact with the air, it turns a tawny red, so much so that the inside of the cell looks at first as though coated with quince-jelly. The final hue is a dull brown, against which pale specks of mixed ligneous refuse stand out sharply.

The first idea that occurs to one’s mind is that the Weevil’s glue must be some special secretion, not unlike silk, but emerging from the opposite pole. Can there be actually glands secreting a viscous fluid in the grub’s hinder part? I open a larva which is busily building. Things are not as I imagined: there is no glandular apparatus attached to the lower end of the digestive canal.

Nor is there anything to be seen in the ventricle. Only the Malpighian tubes, which are rather large [34]and four in number, reveal, by their opaline tint, the fact that they are fairly full; while the lower portion of the intestine is dilated with a pulpy substance which conspicuously attracts the eye.

It is a semi-fluid, viscous, treacly material of a muddy white. I perceive that it contains an abundance of opaque corpuscles, like finely powdered chalk, which effervesce when dissolved in nitric acid and are therefore uric products.

This very soft pulp is, beyond a doubt, the cement which the grub ejects and collects drop by drop; and the rectum is obviously the bitumen-warehouse. The parity of aspect, colour, and treacly consistency are to me decisive: the grub consolidates and cements and creates a work of art with the refuse from its sewer.

Is this really an excremental residue? Doubts may be permitted. The four Malpighian tubes which have poured the powdered urates into the intestine might well supply it with other materials. They do not in general seem to perform very exclusive duties. Why should they not be entrusted with various functions in a poorly-equipped organism? They fill with a chalky broth to enable the Capricorn’s larva to block the doorway of its cell with a marble slab. It would not be at all surprising if they were also gorged with the viscous fluid that becomes the asphalt of the Larinus.[35]

In this embarrassing instance the following explanation may possibly suffice. The Larinus’ larva observes, as we know, a very light diet, consisting of sap instead of solid food. Therefore there is no coarse residue. I have never seen any dirt in the cell; its cleanliness is perfect.

This does not mean that all the nourishment is absorbed. There is certainly refuse of no nutritive value, but it is thin and almost fluid. Can this be the pitch that cements and stops up the chinks? Why not? If so, the grub would be building with its excrement; with its ordure it would be making a pretty home.

Here we must silence our repugnance. Where would you have the recluse obtain the material for its casket? Its cell is its world. It knows nothing beyond that cell; nothing comes to its assistance. It must perish if it cannot find its store of cement within itself. Various caterpillars, not rich enough to afford the luxury of a perfect cocoon, have the knack of felting their hairs with a little silk. The Larinus grub, that poverty-stricken creature, having no spinning-mill, must have recourse to its intestine, its only stand-by.

This stercoral method proves once more that necessity is the mother of invention. To build a luxurious palace with one’s ordure is a most meritorious device. Only an insect would be capable of it. For that matter, the Larinus has no monopoly of this architectural style, which is [36]not described in Vitruvius,5 Many other larvæ, better-furnished with building-materials—those of the Onites, the Onthophagi,6 the Cetoniæ,7 for example—greatly excel it in the beauty of their excremental edifices.

When completed, on the approach of the nymphosis, the abode of the Larinus is an oval cell measuring fifteen millimetres in length by ten in width.8 Its compact structure almost enables it to resist the pressure of the fingers. Its main diameter runs parallel with the axis of the thistle-head. When, as is not unusual, three cells are grouped on the same support, the whole is not unlike the fruit of the castor-oil-plant, with its three shaggy husks.

The outer wall of the cell is a rustic bristle of chips and hairy débris and above all of whole florets, faded and yellow, torn from their base and pushed out of place while retaining their natural arrangement. In the thickness of the wall the cement predominates. The inner wall is polished, washed with a red-brown lacquer and sprinkled with an incrustation of ligneous fragments. [37]Lastly, the pitch is of excellent quality. It makes a solid wall of the work; and, moreover, it is impervious to moisture: when immersed in water, the cell does not permit any to pass through to the interior.

In short, the Larinus’ cell is a comfortable dwelling, endowed, in the beginning, with the pliancy of soft leather, which allows free scope for the growing-process; then, thanks to the cement, it hardens into a shell permitting the peaceful somnolence of the transformation. The flexible tent of the early days becomes a stout manor-house.

Here, I told myself, the adult would pass the winter, protected against the damp, which is more to be dreaded than the cold. I was wrong. By the end of September most of the cells are empty, though their support, the blue thistle, eager to open its last blooms, is still in fairly good condition. The Weevils have gone, in all the freshness of their flowered costume; they have broken out through the top of their cells, which now gape like broken pitchers. A few loiterers still lag behind at home, but are quite ready to make off, judging by their agility when my curiosity chances to set them free.

When the inclement months of December and January have arrived, I no longer find a single cell inhabited. The whole population has migrated. Where has it taken refuge?[38]

I am not quite sure. Perhaps in the heaps of broken stones, under cover of the dead leaves, in the shelter of the tufts of grass that grow beneath the hawthorn in the hedges. For a Weevil the country-side is full of winter-resorts. We need not be anxious about the emigrants; they are well able to look after themselves.

None the less, in the face of this exodus, my first impression is one of surprise. To leave such an excellent lodging for a casual shelter, of doubtful safety, seems to me a rash and ill-advised expedient. Can the insect be lacking in prudence? No; it has serious motives for decamping as quickly as possible when the autumn draws to an end. Let me explain matters.

In the winter the echinops is a brown ruin which the north-wind tears from its hold, flings on the ground and reduces to tatters by rolling it in the mud of the roads. A few days of bad weather turn the handsome blue thistle into a mass of lamentable decay.

What would become of the Weevil on this support, now the plaything of the winds? Would her tarred cask resist the assaults of the storm? Would she survive rolling over the rough soil and prolonged steeping in the puddles of melted snow?

The Weevils foreknow the dangers of a crazy support; warned by the almanac of instinct, they foresee the winter and its miseries. So they [39]move house while there is yet time; they leave their cells for a stable shelter where they will no longer have to fear the vicissitudes of a dwelling blown along the ground at random.

The desertion of the casket is not a sign of rash haste on the part of the Larinus: it shows a clear perception of coming events. In fact, a second Larinus will teach us presently that, when the support is safe and solidly rooted in the ground, the natal cell is not deserted until the return of the fine weather.

In conclusion, I ought perhaps to mention an apparently insignificant, but very exceptional fact, which I have only once observed in my dealings with the Spotted Larinus. Considering the scarcity of authentic data as to what becomes of instinct when the conditions of life are altered, we should do wrong to neglect these trifling discoveries.

Making ample allowance for anatomy, a precious aid, what do we know of animals? Next to nothing. Instead of inflating cabbalistic bladders with this nothing, let us collect well-observed facts, however humble. From a sheaf of such facts a clear, calm light may shine forth one day, a light far preferable to the fireworks of theories which dazzle us for a moment only to leave us in blacker darkness.

Here is this little detail. By some accident an egg has fallen from the blue globe, its regular lodging, into the axilla of a leaf half-way up the [40]stem. We can even admit, if we choose, that the mother, either by inadvertence or by intention, laid it at this point herself. What will become of the egg under such conditions, so far removed from the rules? What I have before my eyes tell us.

The grub, faithful to custom, has not failed to broach the stem of the thistle, which allows the nourishing moisture to ooze from the wound. As a defence it has built itself a pitcher similar in shape and size to that which it would have obtained in the thistle-head. This novel edifice lacks only one thing: the roof of dead florets bristling on the customary hut.

The builder has contrived to do very well without its floral pantiles. It has made use of the base of the leaf, one lobe of which is involved, as a support, in the wall of the cell; and from both leaf and stalk it has taken the ligneous particles which it had to imbed in the cement. In short, except that it is bare instead of surrounded with a palisade, the fabric adhering to the stalk does not differ from that hidden beneath the withered florets of the thistle-head.

People set great store by environment as a modifying agent. Well, here we see this famous environment at work. An insect is placed as much out of its element as it can be, but without leaving the food-plant, which would inevitably be the end of it. Instead of a ball of close-packed flowers it [41]has for its workshop the open axilla of a leaf; instead of hairs—a soft fleece easily shorn off—it has for its materials the fierce teeth of the thistle. And these profound changes leave the builder’s talents unperturbed; the house is built according to the usual plans.

I agree that I have not allowed for the influence of the centuries. But what would this influence bring about? It is not very clear. The Weevil born in an unusual place retains no trace of the accident that has happened. I extract the adult from his exceptional cell. He does not differ, even in size, a not very important characteristic, from the Larini born in the regular cell. He has thriven on the axilla of the leaf as he would have done on the thistle-head.

Let us admit that the accident is repeated, that it even becomes a normal condition; let us suppose that the mother decides to abandon her blue balls and to confide her eggs to the axillæ of the leaves indefinitely. What will this change bring about? The answer is obvious.

Since the grub has once developed without hindrance on a site alien to its habits, it will continue to thrive there from generation to generation; with its intestinal cement it will continue to shape a protective pitcher of the same pattern as the old, but, for want of materials, lacking the thatch of withered florets; in short, its talents will remain what they were in the beginning.[42]

This example tells us that the insect, as long as it can accommodate itself to the novel conditions imposed upon it, works in its accustomed fashion; if it cannot do so, it dies rather than change its methods.

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