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 Then at last the instrument is withdrawn.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.