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.