t an egg
to be seen.

To these experiments in the open air I add others performed under glass.
I place, in some tall, narrow bottles, fresh haricot pods hanging from
their stems; some green, others mottled with crimson, and containing
seeds not far from mature. Each bottle is finally given a population of
weevils. This time I obtain some eggs, but I am no further advanced;
they are laid on the sides of the bottles, but not on the pods.
Nevertheless, they hatch. For a few days I see the grubs wandering
about, exploring the pods and the glass with equal zeal. Finally one
and all perish without touching the food provided.

The conclusion to be drawn from these facts is obvious: the young and
tender haricot is not the proper diet. Unlike the _Bruchus pisi_, the
female of the haricot-weevil refuses to trust her family to beans that
are not hardened by age and desiccation; she refused to settle on my
bean-patch because the food she required was not to be found there. What
does she require? Evidently the mature, dry, hard haricot, which falls
to earth with the sound of a small pebble. I hasten to satisfy her. I
place in the bottles some very mature, horny pods, thoroughly desiccated
by exposure to the sun. This time the family prospers, the grubs
perforate the dry shell, reach the beans, penetrate them, and henceforth
all goes well.

To judge by appearances, then, the weevil invades the granary. The beans
are left standing in the fields until both plants and pods, shrivelled
by the sun, are completely desiccated. The process of beating the pods
to loosen and separate the beans is thus greatly facilitated. It is then
that the weevil, finding matters to suit her, commences to lay her eggs.
By storing his crop a little late the peasant stores the pest as well.

But the weevil more especially attacks the haricot when warehoused. Like
the Calander-beetle, which nibbles the wheat in our granaries but
despises the cereal while still on the stalk, it abhors the bean while
tender, and prefers to establish itself in the peace and darkness of the
storehouse. It is a formidable enemy to the merchant rather than to the
peasant.

What a fury of destruction once the ravager is installed in the
vegetable treasure-house! My bottles give abundant evidence of this. One
single haricot bean shelters a numerous family; often as many as twenty
members. And not one generation only exploits the bean, but three or
four in the year. So long as the