Six weeks later, in the middle of June, the oldest rolls are dilapidated hovels, retaining scarcely a [[135]]trace of their cylindrical form save the outer layer, a protecting roof. Let us open one of these ruins. Inside, there is absolute wreck, a mixture of shapeless remnants and black granules, like fine gunpowder; outside, a crumbling envelope, pierced here and there with holes. These openings tell me that the inhabitants have departed and made their way underground.
I find them, in fact, in the layers of moist sand with which the jars are provided. Pushing and heaving with their backs, they have each dug themselves a round hollow, taking up the least possible room, in which the grub, rolled into a bunch, makes ready for its new life.
Though formed of sandy particles, the wall of the cell does not threaten to collapse. Before lapsing into the sleep of the transformation, the recluse has deemed it prudent to strengthen its house. With a little care, I am able to detach the dwelling in the form of a little ball the size of a pea.
I then discover that the materials are cemented by means of a gummy produce which, liquid at the moment of its emission, has penetrated to a sufficient depth and welded the sandy grains into a wall of a certain thickness. This product, which is colourless and not very plentiful, leaves me in doubt as to its origin. It certainly does not come from glands similar to the silk-tubes of the caterpillars; the Weevil-grub possesses nothing of that [[136]]kind. It is, therefore, a contribution from the digestive canal, presented through either the entrance or the exit-door. Which of the two?
Without completely solving the question of this cement, another Weevil supplies a fairly probable answer. This is Brachycerus algirus, Fab., an ugly, unwieldy insect, covered with little warts each ending in a claw-like horn. It is soot-black and almost always soiled with earth when you meet it in spring. This dusty garb denotes a tunneller.
The Brachycerus, in fact, haunts the subsoil, hunting for garlic, the exclusive food of her larva. In my modest kitchen-garden, garlic, dear to the Provence folk, has its special corner. At the time when we gather it, in July, most of the heads give me a magnificent grub, fat as butter, which has dug itself a large hollow in one of the cloves, only one, without touching the rest. This is the grub of the Brachycerus, which discovered the aioli of the Provençal cooks long before they did.
Raw garlic, Raspail[2] used to say, is the camphor of the poor. The camphor possibly, but not the bread. This paradox becomes a reality in the case of our grub, which is so much in love with this powerful condiment that it will not eat anything else its whole life long. How, with this fiery diet, does it put on such fine layers of fat? That is its [[137]]secret; and there is room for every sort of taste in this world of ours.
After eating its clove, this lover of garlic dives deeper into the soil, fearing perhaps the lifting of the bulbs, the time for which will soon arrive. It foresees the annoyance which the market-gardener would cause it; and it goes below, far from the natal plant.
I have reared a dozen in a jar half full of sand. Some have established themselves right against the wall, which enables me to obtain a vague idea of how things happen in the underground cell. The builder is bent into a bow which now and again closes and forms a circle. I then seem to see it collecting, with the tips of its mandibles, as the Larini do, a sticky drop which forms at its hinder end. With this it soaks the sandy wall and smears the glass, on which the stuff hardens in cloudy streaks, white and pale-yellow.
On the whole, the appearance of the cement employed and the little that I can see of the grub’s proceedings incline me to believe that the Brachycerus strengthening its cabin uses the same method as the Larinus building its thatched hut. The Brachycerus also knows the whimsical secret of turning the intestine into a factory of hydraulic cement. The sandy agglomerate thus obtained forms a fairly solid shell, in which the insect, which reaches the adult stage in August, remains until the garlic season is at hand. [[138]]