hole in
which the egg is laid. The Bruchus possesses only a short snout or
muzzle, excellently adapted for eating soft tissues, but valueless as a
drill.

The method of installing the family is consequently absolutely
different. There are no industrious preparations as with the Balinidae,
the Larinidae, and the Rhynchitides. Not being equipped with a long
oviscapt, the mother sows her eggs in the open, with no protection
against the heat of the sun and the variations of temperature. Nothing
could be simpler, and nothing more perilous to the eggs, in the absence
of special characteristics which would enable them to resist the
alternate trials of heat and cold, moisture and drought.

In the caressing sunlight of ten o'clock in the morning the mother runs
up and down the chosen pod, first on one side, then on the other, with a
jerky, capricious, unmethodical gait. She repeatedly extrudes a short
oviduct, which oscillates right and left as though to graze the skin of
the pod. An egg follows, which is abandoned as soon as laid.

A hasty touch of the oviduct, first here, then there, on the green skin
of the pea-pod, and that is all. The egg is left there, unprotected, in
the full sunlight. No choice of position is made such as might assist
the grub when it seeks to penetrate its larder. Some eggs are laid on
the swellings created by the peas beneath; others in the barren valleys
which separate them. The first are close to the peas, the second at some
distance from them. In short, the eggs of the Bruchus are laid at
random, as though on the wing.

We observe a still more serious vice: the number of eggs is out of all
proportion to the number of peas in the pod. Let us note at the outset
that each grub requires one pea; it is the necessary ration, and is
largely sufficient to one larva, but is not enough for several, nor even
for two. One pea to each grub, neither more nor less, is the
unchangeable rule.

We should expect to find signs of a procreative economy which would
impel the female to take into account the number of peas contained in
the pod which she has just explored; we might expect her to set a
numerical limit on her eggs in conformity with that of the peas
available. But no such limit is observed. The rule of one pea to one
grub is always contradicted by the multiplicity of consumers.

My observations are unanimous on this point. The number of eggs
deposited on one pod always exceeds the number of peas availa