Though the Curculio be but little glorified by his talents, this is no reason for scorning him. As we learn from the lacustrian schists, he was in the van of the insects with the armoured wing-cases; he was long stages ahead of the workers in incubation within the limits of possibility. He speaks to us of primitive forms, sometimes so quaint; he is, in his own little world, what the bird with the toothed jaws and the Saurian with the horned eyebrows are in a higher world.
In ever-thriving legions, he has been handed down to us without changing his characteristics. He is to-day as he was in the old times of the continents: the prints in the chalky slates proclaim the fact aloud. Under any such print, I would venture to write the name of the genus, sometimes even of the species.
Permanence of instinct must go with permanence of form. By consulting the modern Curculionid, therefore, we shall obtain a very approximate chapter upon the biology of his predecessors, at the time when Provence had great lakes filled with crocodiles and palm-trees on their banks wherewith to shade them. The history of the present will teach us the history of the past. [[184]]
[1] The Vocontii inhabited the Viennaise, between the Allobroges on the north, the Caturiges and the estates of King Cottius on the east, the Cavares on the west, and the Memini and Vulgientes on the south. Vasio (Vocontia), now Vaison, was their capital.—Translator’s Note. [↑]
[2] From Massalia, the ancient name of Marseilles, of which Phocæa, in Asia Minor, was the mother city.—Translator’s Note. [↑]
[3] Nemansus, the Latin name of Nîmes.—Translator’s Note. [↑]