THE ELEPHANT WEEVIL

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 ELEPHANT WEEVIL

Chapter V. THE ELEPHANT WEEVIL

Some of our machines have odd-looking parts which seem inexplicable so long as they are seen in repose. But wait until the whole is set in motion, when the uncouth contrivance, with its gear-wheels biting and its jointed rods opening and closing, will reveal an ingenious combination wherein everything is cunningly arranged in view of the effects to be obtained. It is the same with various Weevils, notably the Balanini,1 who, as their name tells us, are charged with the exploitation of acorns, nuts, and other similar fruits.

The most remarkable in my part of the country is the Elephant Weevil, or Acorn-weevil (Balaninus elephas, Sch.). What a well-named insect! Its title is a picture in itself. It is a living caricature, with its prodigious pipe-stem, no thicker than a horse-hair, reddish, almost straight and so long that the insect is obliged to carry it extended like a lance at rest, lest it should stumble, hampered by its instrument. What does it do with this enormous pike, with this ridiculous nose?

Here I see some shrugging their shoulders. In [72]fact, if the sole object of life is to make money by hook or by crook, such queries are sheer madness. Happily there are others to whom nothing in the majestic problem of things is trivial. They know of what humble dough the bread of thought is kneaded, a bread no less necessary than that made from wheat; they know that husbandmen and inquirers alike feed the world with an accumulation of minute fragments.

Let us take pity on the question and proceed. Without seeing it at work, we already suspect the Weevil’s paradoxical beak of being a drill similar to those which we employ to bore through the hardest substances. Two diamond-points, the mandibles, form its terminal bit. Like the Larini, but under conditions of greater difficulty, the Weevil must use it to prepare the way for installing the egg.

But suspicion, however well-founded, is not certainty. I shall not know the secret unless and until I witness the performance.

Chance, the servant of those who solicit her patiently, procures me a meeting with the Acorn-weevil at work in the first fortnight of October. My surprise is great, for at this late period all industrial activity as a rule is at an end. The entomological season closes with the first touch of cold.

It happens to be wild weather to-day; an icy north-wind is roaring, chapping one’s lips. One [73]needs a stout faith to go out on a day like this to inspect the thickets. Yet, if the Weevil with the long churchwarden exploits the acorns, as I imagine that she does, now or never is the time to look into things. The acorns, still green, have attained their full dimensions. In two or three weeks they will possess the deep brown of perfect maturity, soon to be followed by their fall.

My hare-brained excursion gives me a success. On the ilexes I surprise a Weevil, with her proboscis half-sunk in an acorn. To observe her with due care is impossible while the branches are being lashed and shaken by the mistral. I break off the twig and lay it gently on the ground. The insect takes no notice of its removal and goes on with its job. I squat down beside it, sheltered from the gale behind a clump of brushwood, and watch operations.

Shod with clinging sandals which will enable her later, in my cages, to scale a perpendicular pane of glass, the Weevil is firmly fixed on the smooth and sloping curve of the acorn. She is working her drill. Slowly and awkwardly she moves around her implanted rod, describes a semicircle whose centre is the perforated point and then, retracing her steps, describes the semicircle in the reverse direction. And this is repeated several times over. We do the same when, by an alternating movement of the wrist, we make a hole in a piece of wood with a bradawl.[74]

Little by little the rostrum enters. In an hour’s time it has disappeared entirely. A brief rest follows. Then at last the instrument is withdrawn. What will happen next? Nothing more, this time. The Weevil abandons her shaft and solemnly retires, hiding among the dead leaves. I shall learn no more to-day.

But I have been given a hint. On still days, more favourable to my hunting, I return to the spot and soon have the wherewithal to stock my cages. Foreseeing serious difficulties because of the slowness of the work, I prefer to continue my studies indoors, with the unlimited leisure to be found at home.

This was an excellent precaution. If I had tried to go on as I had begun and to observe the Weevil’s actions in the freedom of the woods, never should I have had the patience to follow to the end the choice of the acorn, the boring of the hole and the laying of the eggs—even presuming that my discoveries were propitious—so meticulously deliberate is the insect in its business, as the reader will presently be able to judge.

The copses frequented by my Weevil are composed of three kinds of oaks: the ilex and the durmast, which would become fine trees if the woodcutter gave them time, and lastly the kermes-oak, a wretched, scrubby bush. The first, the most plentiful of the three, is the Weevil’s favourite. Its acorns are firm, long in shape and moderate in [75]size; the cup is covered with little warts. Those of the durmast oak are generally stunted, short, wrinkled and subject to premature falls. The dryness of the Sérignan hills does not suit them. The Weevil therefore accepts them only in the absence of something better.

The humility of the kermes, a dwarf shrub, a truly comic oak, which a man can step over at a stride, is contrasted by the wealth of its acorns, which are large, swelling ovoids, set in a cup bristling with sharp scales. The Weevil could not have a better home. It forms a strong dwelling and a copious storehouse.

I place a few sprigs from these three oaks, well-furnished with acorns, under the dome of my wire-gauze covers, with their ends dipped in a tumbler of water to keep them fresh; I install a suitable number of couples; lastly, I stand the cages on the window-sills of my study, where they get the direct sunlight for the greater part of the day. Let us now possess our souls in patience and keep a constant watch. We shall be rewarded. The exploitation of the acorn is worth seeing.

Things do not drag on so very long. Two days after these preparations, I arrive at the exact moment when the work begins. The mother, larger than the male and supplied with a longer drill, is inspecting her acorn, no doubt in view of the eggs.

She goes over it step by step, from tip to stem, [76]above and below. Walking is easy on the wrinkled cup; it would be impracticable on the rest of the surface if the soles of her feet were not shod with clinging pattens, with brushes which enable her to keep her balance in any position. Without tripping or stumbling, therefore, the insect walks with equal ease, over the top or bottom or up the sides of her slippery pedestal.

The choice is made; the acorn is recognized as being of good quality. The time has come to sink the hole. The rod is difficult to wield, because of its excessive length. To obtain the best mechanical effect, the instrument must be held at right angles to the convex surface; and the cumbrous tool which, out of working-hours, projects in front of the worker must now be brought under her.

To achieve this object, the Weevil raises herself on her hind-legs and stands on the tripod formed by the tip of the wing-cases and of the hinder tarsi. Nothing could be droller than this strange well-sinker, standing erect and drawing her nasal rapier towards her.

The trick is done: the drill is now held plumb. The boring begins. The method is that which I saw employed in the woods, on the day when the wind was so strong. Very slowly, the insect veers from right to left and from left to right alternately. Her tool is not a gimlet, a spiral, corkscrew-like implement which enters as the result of a rotary [77]movement always in one direction; it is a trocar which progresses by successive bites, by eating away now in one direction, now in another.

Before continuing, let me give room to an accidental fact, which is too striking to be passed over. On various occasions I have found the insect dead at its work. The deceased occupies a strange position, which would give food for laughter if death were not always a serious event, especially when it comes suddenly, in the midst of toil. The boring-tool is implanted in the acorn merely by its tip: the work was just beginning. At the top of the rod, a lethal stake, the Weevil is suspended in mid-air, at right angles, far from the supporting surface. She is dried-up, dead since I know not how many days. The legs are stiff and contracted under the abdomen. Even if they retained the flexibility and the power of extension which was theirs in life, they would not be able, by a long way, to reach the support of the acorn. What has happened then, that the poor wretch should be impaled like an insect in our collections with a pin stuck through its head?

What has happened is a workshop-accident. Because of the length of her bradawl, the Weevil begins by working upright, standing on her hind-legs. Imagine a slip, a false move of the two clinging grapnels; and the unskilful Weevil will instantly lose her footing, dragged away by the elasticity of the probe, which she must have [78]forced slightly and bent at the start. Thus lifted to some distance from her foothold, she vainly struggles, hanging in the air; nowhere can her tarsi, those safety anchors, find anything to grip. She succumbs exhausted at the top of her stake, for lack of a support whereby to release herself. Like the workmen in our factories, the Elephant Weevil also is sometimes the victim of her machinery. Let us wish her good luck and sure feet, careful not to slip, and continue.

This time the mechanism works perfectly, but so slowly that the descent of the drill, even when magnified by the lens, cannot be perceived. And the insect veers and veers about, rests and again resumes her work. An hour, two hours pass, of enervating, sustained attention, for I want to see the action at the exact moment when the Weevil withdraws her probe, turns round and deposits her egg at the mouth of the well. This at least is how I foresee events.

Two hours elapse, exhausting my patience. I make arrangements with my household. Three of us will relieve one another in turn, keeping an uninterrupted watch on the obstinate creature, whose secret I must have at all costs.

I was well-advised to call in helpers to lend me their eyes and their attention. After eight hours, eight endless hours, the sentry on the watch summons me. The insect appears to have finished. It does in fact step back, it withdraws its drill, [79]carefully, lest it should bend it. The tool is now outside, once more pointing forwards, in a straight line.

This is the moment.… Alas, no! Once again I am cheated: my eight hours’ watch has led to nothing. The Weevil decamps, abandons the acorn without making use of her boring. Yes, I was certainly right to distrust observation in the woods. Such a period of waiting among the ilexes, under the scorching sun, would have been an unbearable torture.

All through October, with the aid of helpers when needful, I remark numerous borings not followed by any laying. The operation varies greatly in length. Generally it lasts a couple of hours; sometimes it takes half the day or even more.

What is the object of these shafts, made at such cost of time and labour and very often left unstocked? Let us first look for the site occupied by the egg and forming the grub’s earliest mouthfuls; then perhaps the reply will come.

The inhabited acorns remain on the oak, encased in their cups as though nothing abnormal were happening to injure the seed-lobes. They are easily recognized with a little attention. Not far from the cup, on the smooth and still green shells, a little speck shows, just like the prick of a fine needle. Soon it is surrounded by a narrow brown ring, the result of mortification. This is [80]the mouth of the hole. At other times, but less often, the opening is made through the cup itself.

We will take the acorns recently perforated, that is to say, those with a pale puncture, not yet surrounded by the brown ring which will appear in time. Shell them. Several contain no foreign matter: the Weevil has bored them without laying her eggs in them. These represent the acorns worked for hours and hours in my cages and not afterwards used. Many contain an egg.

Now, however far above the cup the entrance to the pit may be, this egg is always right at the bottom, at the base of the seed-lobes. There is here, provided by the cup, a soft, blanket-like layer which imbibes the sapid exudations from the tip of the peduncle, the source of nourishment. I see a young grub, hatched before my eyes, nibble as its first mouthfuls this tender woolly mass, this moist cake flavoured with tannin.

This dainty, juicy and easy of digestion, like all nascent organic matter, is found only at this particular spot; and it is solely here, between the cup and the base of the seed-lobes, that the Weevil lodges her egg. The insect knows to a nicety the position of the morsels best-suited to the feeble stomach of the new-born larva.

Above this is the comparatively coarse bread of the seed-lobes. Refreshed by its first meal at the drinking-bar, the grub enters it, not directly, but through the tunnel opened by the mother’s [81]probe, a tunnel littered with crumbs, with half-masticated fragments. This light farinaceous food, prepared in a column of appropriate height, gives strength; and the grub next penetrates right into the firm substance of the acorn.

These facts explain the egg-layer’s tactics. What is her object when, before proceeding to bore the hole, she inspects her acorn, above, below, in front and behind, with fastidious care? She is making sure that the fruit is not already occupied. It is a rich larder, certainly; nevertheless, there is not enough for two. Never indeed have I found two larvæ in the same acorn. One only, always one only, digests the generous morsel and converts it into pale-green flour before leaving it and descending to the ground. Of the seed-lobe bread, at most an insignificant crumb remains. The rule is that each grub has its loaf, each consumer its ration consisting of one acorn.

Before trusting the egg to the acorn, therefore, it is important to examine it, to ascertain if it already has an occupant. Now this occupant, if any, is at the bottom of a crypt, at the base of the acorn, under the cover of a cup bristling with scales. Nothing could be more secret than this hiding-place. No eye would suspect the presence of a recluse if the surface of the acorn did not bear the mark of a tiny puncture.

This just visible mark is my guide. Its appearance tells me that the fruit is inhabited or that it [82]has at least been prepared for the reception of the egg; its absence assures me that the acorn has not been appropriated. The Weevil, beyond a doubt, obtains her information in the same manner.

I see things from a height, with a comprehensive glance, assisted if need be by the magnifying-glass. I turn the object for a moment in my fingers; and my inspection is over. The Weevil, investigating at close quarters, is obliged to point her microscope more or less everywhere before detecting the tell-tale speck with certainty. Moreover, the welfare of her family compels her to make a far more scrupulous search than that prompted by my curiosity. This is why her examination of the acorn is so excessively protracted.

It is done: the acorn is accepted as a good one. The drill is driven in and kept working for hours; then, very often, the insect goes away, despising her work. The laying of the egg does not follow on the boring. What is the object of so great and so long an effort? Can the Weevil simply be piercing the fruit to satisfy her appetite and obtain refreshment? Can the reed-like beak go down to the depths of the barrel to draw, from the likeliest spots, a few mouthfuls of sustaining drink? Can the enterprise be a matter of personal nourishment?

I thought so at first, though I was a little surprised at this display of perseverance in view of a sip. The males taught me to abandon the idea. [83]They too possess a long rostrum, capable of opening a well if necessary; nevertheless I never see one standing on an acorn and working at it with his drill. Why take so much trouble? A mere nothing satisfies these frugal eaters. A superficial digging with the tip of the proboscis into the tender leaf yields enough to maintain their strength.

If they, the idlers who have leisure to enjoy the delights of the table, want no more, how will it be with the mothers, busy with the laying? Have they the time to eat and drink? No, the pierced acorn is not a bar at which to lounge, sipping without end. That the beak, when driven into the fruit, levies a small mouthful is possible; but this scrap is certainly not the object in view.

I seem to catch a glimpse of the real object. The egg, as we said, is always at the base of the acorn, in the midst of a sort of wadding moistened by the sap that oozes from the stalk. At the hatching, the grub, incapable as yet of tackling the firm substance of the seed-lobes, chews the delicate felt at the bottom of the cup and feeds upon its juices.

But, as the fruit matures, this cake becomes more solid and changes in flavour and in the consistency of its pulp. What was soft hardens, what was moist dries up. There is a period during which the conditions necessary to the new-born grub’s welfare are fulfilled to perfection. At an earlier stage, [84]things would not have reached the requisite degree of preparation; later, they would be too ripe.

Outside, on the green rind of the acorn, there is nothing to show the progress of this inner cooking. In order not to serve her grub with noxious food, the mother, inadequately informed by the sight of the acorn, is therefore obliged first to taste with the tip of her proboscis what lies at the bottom of the store-room.

The nurse, before giving baby his spoonful of pap, puts her lips to it to try it. The mother Weevil in the same way, with no less affection, dips her probe to the bottom of the basin, to try its contents before bequeathing them to her son. If the food is considered satisfactory, the egg is laid; if not, the boring is abandoned without more ado. This explains the perforations of which no advantage is taken after much laborious work. The soft bread at the bottom, carefully tested, was not found to be in the required condition. How particular, how fastidious are these Weevils, where the first mouthful of the family is concerned!

To place the egg in a spot where the new-born grub will find light, juicy, easily-digested food is not enough for these far-seeing mothers. Their care goes farther. An intermediate diet would be useful, to lead the little larva from the dainty fare of the first hours to the regimen of hard bread. This intermediate diet is in the gallery, the work of the mother’s beak. Here are crumbs, particles [85]bitten off by the shears of the proboscis. Moreover, the sides of the tunnel, softened by mortification, are better-suited than the rest to the feeble mandibles of the novice.

Before nibbling at the seed-lobes, the grub does in fact embark upon this tunnel. It feeds on the meal found along the road; it gathers the discoloured atoms hanging from the walls; and lastly, when strong enough, it attacks the loaf of the kernel, digs into it and disappears inside. The stomach is ready. The rest is a blissful feast.

This tubular nursery must be of a certain length to satisfy the needs of infancy; and so the mother works her drill accordingly. If the thrust of the probe were intended solely for sampling the material at the base of the acorn and examining its degree of maturity, the operation would be much shorter, since it could be started near that base, through the cup. This advantage is not unrecognized: I have happened to surprise the insect working upon the scaly cupule.

I see in this merely an attempt of the hurried mother to obtain information. If the acorn suits, the boring will be made over again, higher up, outside the cup. When the egg is to be laid, the rule, in fact, is to bore through the acorn itself, as high up as the length of the tool permits.

What is the object of this long boring, which is not always finished in half a day? What is the use of this stubborn perseverance when, near the [86]stalk, at the cost of much less time and labour, the bradawl would reach the desired point, the running spring whereat the nascent grub is to slake its thirst? The mother has her reasons for going to all this trouble: by so doing she reaches the regular spot, the base of the acorn, and by this very action—a most valuable result—prepares a long tube of meal for her son.

These are all trivialities! Not so, if you please: matters of great importance rather, telling us of the infinite cares that preside over the preservation of the least of things and bearing witness to a higher logic which regulates the smallest details.

The Weevil, so happily inspired as a breeder, has her place in the world and is worthy of consideration. So at least thinks the Blackbird, who gladly makes a meal of the long-beaked insect when the berries begin to run short at the end of autumn. It is a small mouthful but a tasty one; and it makes a pleasant change after the bitterness of the olive that still resists the cold.

And what were the reawakening of the woods in spring, without the Blackbird and his rivals! Were man to disappear, annihilated by his own follies, the springtide festival would be no less solemnly celebrated by the Blackbird’s triumphant fluting.

To the most deserving part played in feasting the bird, the minstrel of the forests, the Weevil adds another, that of moderating the amount of [87]vegetable lumber. Like all the mighty really worthy of their power, the oak is generous: it yields acorns by the bushel. What could the earth do with this abundance? The forest itself would be stifled for lack of space; excess would ruin the essential.

But, as soon as victuals are plentiful, there comes from every side a rush of consumers only too eager to reduce the headlong production. The Field-mouse, a native, hoards acorns in a stone-heap, near her hay mattress. A stranger, the Jay, arrives from a distance, in flocks, apprised I know not how. For some weeks he flies feasting from oak to oak, giving vent to his joys and his emotions by screeching like a strangled Cat; then, having fulfilled his mission, he goes back to the north whence he came.

The Weevil has been beforehand with them all. She confided her eggs to the acorns while these were still green. They are now lying on the ground, brown before their time and pierced with a round hole through which the larva has escaped after consuming the contents. It would be easy under a single oak to fill a basket with these empty ruins. The Weevil has done more than the Jay and more than the Field-mouse to get rid of the superfluity.

Soon man arrives, thinking of his pigs. In my village it is a great event when the public crier announces the opening day for gathering acorns in the common woods. The more zealous inspect [88]the ground on the eve, in order to select a good place. Next morning, at peep of day, the whole family is there. The father beats the higher branches with a pole; the mother, wearing a large canvas apron which allows her to force her way through the thickets, gathers from the tree all that her hand can reach; the children pick up what lies on the ground. And the baskets are filled, followed by the hampers and the sacks.

After the glee of the Field-mouse, the Jay, the Weevil and so many others, here comes that of man, calculating how much bacon his harvest will bring him. One regret mingles with the rejoicings, that is to see so many acorns scattered on the ground, pierced, spoilt, good for nothing. Man inveighs against the author of the damage. To listen to him, you would think that the forest were his alone and that the oaks bore fruit only for his Pig.

‘My friend,’ I would say to him, ‘the forest-ranger can’t summon the delinquent and this is just as well, for our self-seeking, which is inclined to look upon the acorn-crop only in the light of a string of sausages, would lead to tiresome results. The oak invites the whole world to enjoy its fruits. We take the biggest share, because we are the strongest. That is only our right.… But what ranks ever so much higher is a fair division among the various consumers, great and small, all of whom play their part in this world. If it is well [89]that the Blackbird should whistle and gladden the burgeoning of the spring, then let us not take it ill that the acorns are rotten. For here the Blackbird’s dessert is prepared, the Weevil, a dainty mouthful that lends fat to his rump and music to his throat.’

Let us leave the Blackbird to sing and hark back to the Weevil’s egg. We know where it is: at the base of the acorn, in the tenderest and juiciest part of the fruit. How did it get there, so far from the entrance, which is situated above the edge of the cup. A very small question, it is true, even puerile, if you will. Let us not despise it: science is built up of puerilities.

The first man to rub a piece of amber on his sleeve and thereupon to discover that the piece aforesaid attracted bits of straw certainly did not suspect the electric wonders of our day. He was amusing himself in his artless fashion. When repeated and tested in every conceivable manner, this child’s plaything became one of the forces of the world.

The observer must neglect nothing: he never knows what the humblest fact may bring forth. I therefore repeat the question: by what means was the Weevil’s egg placed so far from the entrance?

To any one who was not yet aware of the position of the egg, but who knew that the grub attacks the base of the acorn first, the reply would appear to [90]be as follows: the egg is laid at the entrance of the tunnel, on the surface; and the grub, crawling along the gallery dug by the mother, of its own accord reaches the point where its infant’s-food exists.

At first, before I possessed adequate particulars, this explanation was also my own; but the mistake was soon dispelled. I pluck the acorn when the mother withdraws after for an instant applying the tip of her abdomen to the orifice of the tunnel which her rostrum has just bored. The egg, so it seems, must be there, at the entrance, close to the surface.… But not at all: it is not there; it is at the other end of the passage! If I dared to take the liberty, I should say that it has gone down it as a stone falls to the bottom of a well.

We must hasten to abandon this silly notion: the tunnel is infinitely narrow and blocked with shavings, so that any such descent would be impossible. Besides, according to the direction of the stalk, which may be either downwards or upwards, a fall in one acorn would mean an ascent in another.

A second, no less risky explanation suggests itself. You say to yourself:

‘The Cuckoo lays her egg in the grass, anywhere; she picks it up in her beak and goes and places it as it is in the Warbler’s narrow nest.’

Can the Weevil adopt a similar method? Can [91]she use her rostrum to push her egg to the base of the acorn? I cannot see that the insect has any other implement capable of reaching this remote hiding-place.

And yet we must hastily reject this quaint explanation as a despairing resource. Never does the Weevil lay her egg in the open and then take it in her beak. If she did, the delicate germ would infallibly perish, destroyed in the attempt to push it down a narrow, half-choked passage.

My perplexity is great; and it will be shared by any of my readers who are acquainted with the Weevil’s structure. The Grasshopper owns a sabre, a laying-tool which sinks into the ground and sows the eggs at the requisite depth;2 the Leucospis is endowed with a probe which makes its way through the Chalicodoma’s3 masonry and slips the egg into the cocoon of the fat, sleepy larva; but this Weevil of ours has none of these rapiers, daggers or larding-pins; she has nothing at the tip of her abdomen, absolutely nothing. And yet she has but to apply that tip to the narrow opening of the well for the egg to be lodged, forthwith, at the very bottom.

Anatomy will supply the key to the riddle, which is otherwise undecipherable. I open the mother’s abdomen. What meets my eyes astounds [92]me. There is here, occupying the whole length of the body, an extraordinary piece of mechanism, a stiff, red, horny rod, I was almost saying a rostrum, so closely does it resemble that of the head. It is a tube, slender as a horse-hair, widening slightly like a blunderbuss at the free end and swollen like an egg-shaped capsule at the base.

This is the laying-tool, equalling the bradawl in length. As far as the perforating beak reaches, so far can the egg-probe reach, that inner beak. When working upon her acorn, the Weevil chooses the point of attack so that the two complementary instruments can both reach the desired point, the base of the fruit.

The rest now stands self-explained. When the work of drilling is finished and the gallery ready, the mother turns round and places the tip of her abdomen over the entrance. She unsheathes and protrudes her internal mechanism, which readily sinks through the loose shavings. No sign appears of the directing probe, so quickly and discreetly does it work; no sign appears either when, after the egg has been placed in position, the instrument goes up again and gradually slips back into the abdomen. It is over; the mother departs and we have seen none of her little secrets.

Was I not right to persist? An apparently insignificant fact has told me definitely what the Larini had already led me to suspect. The long-beaked [93]Weevils have an inner probe, an abdominal rostrum, which no outward sign betrays; they possess, hidden away in their belly, the counterpart of the Grasshopper’s sabre and of the Ichneumon-fly’s larding-pin.

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