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.