mong other things, knowledge tells us: "The seedsman need not go to the
expense of waging war upon the weevil. When the peas arrive in the
granary, the harm is already done; it is irreparable, but not
transmissible. The untouched peas have nothing to fear from the
neighbourhood of those which have been attacked, however long the
mixture is left. From the latter the weevils will issue when their time
has come; they will fly away from the storehouse if escape is possible;
if not, they will perish without in any way attacking the sound peas. No
eggs, no new generation will ever be seen upon or within the dried peas
in the storehouse; there the adult weevil can work no further mischief."

The Bruchus is not a sedentary inhabitant of granaries: it requires the
open air, the sun, the liberty of the fields. Frugal in everything, it
absolutely disdains the hard tissues of the vegetable; its tiny mouth is
content with a few honeyed mouthfuls, enjoyed upon the flowers. The
larvae, on the other hand, require the tender tissues of the green pea
growing in the pod. For these reasons the granary knows no final
multiplication on the part of the despoiler.

The origin of the evil is in the kitchen-garden. It is there that we
ought to keep a watch on the misdeeds of the Bruchus, were it not for
the fact that we are nearly always weaponless when it comes to fighting
an insect. Indestructible by reason of its numbers, its small size, and
its cunning, the little creature laughs at the anger of man. The
gardener curses it, but the weevil is not disturbed: it imperturbably
continues its trade of levying tribute. Happily we have assistants more
patient and more clear-sighted than ourselves.

During the first week of August, when the mature Bruchus begins to
emerge, I notice a little Chalcidian, the protector of our peas. In my
rearing-cages it issues under my eyes in abundance from the peas
infested by the grub of the weevil. The female has a reddish head and
thorax; the abdomen is black, with a long augur-like oviscapt. The male,
a little smaller, is black. Both sexes have reddish claws and
thread-like antennae.

In order to escape from the pea the slayer of the weevil makes an
opening in the centre of the circular trap-door which the grub of the
weevil prepared in view of its future deliverance. The slain has
prepared the way for the slayer. After this detail the rest may be
divined.

When the preliminaries to the metamorphosis are com