a, corn-weevil; b, rice-weevil; c, larva; d, pupa.
“This ravager of our granaries,” began Uncle Paul, “is called the grain-weevil, or, in Latin, calandra. It belongs to the order of coleoptera or beetles. Its defensive armor is a hard brown casing finely engraved. It has no membranous wings under the elytra or wing sheaths. Hence it is unable [[296]]to fly, but it runs fast enough and it clings to objects with a firm grip. You see how busy Emile is kept with his straw in preventing the prisoners’ escape. The grain-weevil is about four millimeters long, its body is of a uniform blackish brown, and its head ends in a long snout, a kind of slender trumpet. The corselet or thorax is long, marked with fine pricks or dots, and the wing sheaths are delicately furrowed. The insect’s most striking characteristic is its long, trumpet-shaped snout.”
“It seems to me,” said Jules, “I have seen other beetles, and rather large ones, too, with the head ending in a trumpet like that.”
“I’ve found them on hazels,” added Louis, “and they had a long, slender beak that would make you think the insect was smoking a long pipe.”
“The trumpet beetles form a numerous class, and they are all weevils, but their mode of life varies for the different species. Some attack fruit-trees and grape-vines. We will speak of them one of these days.
“With its pointed snout the grain-weevil makes a tiny hole in a kernel of wheat, and in this it lays an egg which it makes fast by means of a sticky liquid from its own body. Then it passes immediately to other kernels and treats them in the same way, until its store of eggs is exhausted. And all this is done with such delicate nicety that the sharpest eyes would fail to detect any trace of these mischievous germs in the kernels. But a weevil knows very well when a kernel has already received an [[297]]egg, from whatever source, and never does it commit the blunder of laying a second one there, for the grain of wheat is too small for more than one eater. To each kernel its larva, to each larva its kernel, and no more.
“Soon the eggs hatch. The tiny worm punctures the envelop of the grain and through the almost invisible opening makes its way into the mealy substance within. There it is at home, in perfect quiet, peacefully devoted to the pleasures of feasting. For its own exclusive use a grain of wheat, a whole grain of wheat! Thus it grows big and fat. In five or six weeks the flour is all eaten up, but the bran remains, for the clever larva is careful not to make a hole in it; it will need it to serve as a cradle during the coming change. The gnawed kernel appears quite whole, when as a matter of fact it is hollow and lodges a weevil. In this hiding-place the larva turns into a nymph, and the latter into a perfect insect. Then the fully developed weevil tears open the bran covering and leaves its home to explore the pile of wheat, select certain ungnawed grains, and lay its eggs in them, eggs that will in time produce a new population of ravagers.”
Here Uncle Paul picked out a few grains, one by one, and submitted them to his hearers’ scrutiny.
“What do you see that is at all unusual in those grains?” he asked. “Look at them well.”
“I have looked and looked,” Emile replied after a little, “and I don’t see anything.”