ng loose in the passage; it devours the brown
fragments adhering to the walls; finally, being now sufficiently
strengthened, it attacks the body of the acorn, plunges into it, and
disappears. The stomach is ready; the rest is a blissful feast.

This intermediary tunnel must be of a certain length, in order to
satisfy the needs of infancy, so the mother must labour at the work of
drilling. If the perforation were made solely with the purpose of
tasting the material at the base of the acorn and recognising its degree
of maturity, the operation might be very much shorter, since the hole
could be sunk through the cup itself from a point close to the base.
This fact is not unrecognised; I have on occasion found the insect
perforating the scaly cup.

In such a proceeding I see the attempt of a gravid mother pressed for
time to obtain prompt information. If the acorn is suitable the boring
will be recommenced at a more distant point, through the surface of the
acorn itself. When an egg is to be laid the rule is to bore the hole
from a point as distant as is practicable from the base--as far, in
short, as the length of the rostrum will permit.

What is the object of this long perforation, which often occupies more
than half the day? Why this tenacious perseverance when, not far from
the stalk, at the cost of much less time and fatigue, the rostrum could
attain the desired point--the living spring from which the new-born grub
is to drink? The mother has her own reasons for toiling in this manner;
in doing thus she still attains the necessary point, the base of the
acorn, and at the same time--a most valuable result--she prepares for
the grub a long tube of fine, easily digested meal.

But these are trivialities! Not so, if you please, but high and
important matters, speaking to us of the infinite pains which preside
over the preservation of the least of things; witnesses of a superior
logic which regulates the smallest details.

The Balaninus, so happily inspired as a mother, has her place in the
world and is worthy of notice. So, at least, thinks the blackbird, which
gladly makes a meal of the insect with the long beak when fruits grow
rare at the end of autumn. It makes a small mouthful, but a tasty, and
is a pleasant change after such olives as yet withstand the cold.

And what without the blackbird and its rivalry of song were the
reawakening of the woods in spring? Were man to disappear, annihilated
by his own foolish