CHAPTER XLIII

[Contents]CHAPTER XLIIINUT-WEEVILS AND FLOWER-WEEVILS“Ha, you rascal, I’ve caught you at it now, eating my hazelnuts!” cried Louis one day on seeing a weevil piercing with its long beak a still tender young nut. “I’ve caught you at it. But first I’ll learn all about you, and then we’ll have a reckoning.”Nut-weevilNut-weevila, view from above;b, side view; line shows natural size.The weevil was placed in a paper cornucopia together with some pierced hazelnuts, and in his first spare moment Louis hastened to Uncle Paul’s house, his cheeks flushed with excitement. Little Louis was very fond of hazelnuts, and to catch in the very act the insect that attacks them was a very serious matter, to his thinking. In the evening Uncle Paul had his usual audience around him to listen to his account of the hazelnut-weevil.“Here is the little insect Louis has caught,” he began. “Look at its beak a moment.”“What a nose!” exclaimed Emile. “Oh, what a nose! It is as slender as a hair and very long and turned back at the end.”[322]“Doesn’t it look as if it were smoking a long pipe, as I said the other day?” asked Louis.“See, Uncle,” Emile pointed out, “how close together its eyes are; they almost touch each other, and the insect seems to be squinting. How funny it is, with its nose like a pipe-stem and its squinting eyes!”“Where is its mouth?” asked Jules.“At the very end of what Emile calls its long nose,” his uncle replied.“How does it manage to eat? Food must have a hard time getting through that stem not so big around as a thread.”“Yes, how does it manage to eat?” Emile chimed in. “I should be in a terrible fix if I had to take my food through a straw as long as myself.”“The weevil is obliged to exercise moderation; at the most it drinks with its beak only a few drops of sap from the hazelnut-tree it inhabits. But if the weevil is temperate in its diet, the larva of the weevil eats with a good appetite: it demands the whole kernel of a hazelnut, and it is on purpose to give the larva this food that the weevil is provided with the long beak that astonishes you. The perfect insect, I repeat, lives much more for its future family than for itself, its equipment being designed with reference to the future of its young. If the weevil had to think merely of its own food its trumpet would be highly inconvenient; but it must above all look out for the well-being of its larvæ, and to make provision for that, the creature’s long and slender[323]beak is a wonderful tool, serving as a fine gimlet for boring through the nutshell so that the egg may be laid in the very meat itself and the larva be hatched out in the lap of plenty.”“That must be a long, hard job for so fine a gimlet,” Jules remarked.“Not at all. The tiny mandibles at the end of the trumpet bite the shell almost as easily as an edged tool of steel would do it; and moreover the weevil chooses its time. It is in May, when the hazelnuts are beginning to grow and their shells are soft, that the task is undertaken. The insect attacks the nut at the base through the green covering called the cup. As soon as the hole is made, an egg is laid inside the nut and in a week the larva is hatched out. It is a legless worm, white with a red head. As the grub eats very little at first, the hazelnut continues to grow and its kernel to ripen, though gnawed little by little. When August comes, the store of provision is exhausted and the wormy nut lies on the ground. Then the worm, its mandibles strong by this time, makes a round hole in the empty shell and, leaving the nut, buries itself in the ground, where it undergoes transformation the following spring.”“When I am cracking nuts with my teeth,” said Emile, “I once in a while bite into something bitter and soft.”“That is the grub of the weevil.”“Pah! The nasty thing!”[324]“How can I keep the creatures off my hazelnut-trees?” asked Louis.“That is very simple. Gather the wormy nuts, which sooner or later fall to the ground just as does fruit attacked by insects. If they are not pierced with a large hole the worm is still there. By burning them you destroy the weevils of the following year.”“But this year’s weevils will be left.”“No, for it is a rule that insects die soon after laying their eggs.”“You haven’t told us the name of this hazelnut-eater,” said Jules.“It is called the hazelnut-balaninus or hazelnut-weevil, and you can easily recognize it by its very fine, long, and recurved beak, as also by the yellowish-gray down that covers the whole of the insect.“Another balaninus, smaller but of the same shape and color, lives in acorns in its larva state, and is known as the oak-balaninus. A third, not very often seen around here, lives in cherry-stones. It is the cherry-balaninus.”“How different they all are in their ways of living!” Jules remarked. “The grain-weevil gnaws the kernels of grain; the vine-weevils and fruit-weevils roll leaves or prick pears and plums or cut the buds; and now here are the nut-weevils that attack the hazelnut-meat, the cherry-stone, and the acorn. Are there any that eat flowers?”“Indeed there are. No part of a plant is spared by insects. The apple-tree, the pear-tree, and the[325]cherry-tree have each its peculiar weevil that in its larva state lives at the expense of the flower buds. These ravagers are called by a Greek name meaning flower-eaters. See this apple-tree weevil, the one most familiar to us. It is brown, with a small white stripe edged with black and placed slantwise on the end of each wing sheath. Beginning in April, it spreads over the apple-trees and pierces the flower buds with its fine beak, laying an egg in each one. A week later the larva is hatched out, and immediately the little worm begins to gnaw the flower that is curled up in the bud. Only the outside covering is left intact by this devourer. Of course a bud that has had its heart eaten out cannot blossom, and so flower and fruit are both lost. The damaged buds, being gnawed only within, keep their shape and take in drying the appearance of cloves.”“Those cloves that Mother Ambroisine puts in stews?” asked Emile.“The same.”“What are cloves?”“They are, as I have already told you,1the buds or unopened flowers of the clove-tree, an aromatic bush growing in hot countries. They are gathered before opening and are dried in the sun.”“I see why buds pricked by the flower-weevil look like cloves. In both cases they are buds that have dried up without opening.”“The larva of the flower-weevil, like those of weevils in general, is a tiny legless worm, white in[326]color. It does not leave the bud it has gnawed when this falls from the tree. The larva of the nut-weevil leaves its nut by boring a hole through the shell, that of the conical weevil leaves the fallen shoot, the vine-weevil lets itself drop out of its rolled leaf, and all three bury themselves in the ground to pass the winter in safety and be transformed the following spring. The larva of the flower-weevil is more expeditious: its change into an insect takes place as soon as it has eaten its bud, so that there is no need for it to leave its quarters. As animals never do anything without a purpose, the grub remains shut up in the dry bud. Six weeks after the egg is laid the larva emerges transformed into a perfect insect and flits from one apple-tree to another all summer. Then comes the winter.”“That must be a trying time,” said Jules.“Many perish, but others survive, hidden under moss, in the cracks of bark, or among dry leaves. Indeed, there are plenty of them left to destroy the buds on our apple-trees when spring comes.“The flower-weevil of the pear-tree and that of the cherry-tree resemble the one I have just shown you, and their habits are exactly the same.“It is not easy to get rid of these flower-destroyers. If one had only a few trees to take care of, and those easy to get at in every part, one could if necessary gather and burn the dry buds inhabited by the larvæ. By this painstaking process some of the following year’s fruit might be saved; but not even so should we get rid of all the flower-weevils,[327]as these insects fly well and far and they would come from the surrounding region after we had destroyed all our own. Besides, the gathering of injured buds is impracticable on a large scale.”“Will these little flower-eaters come to be masters of our orchards?” asked Jules. “Will they destroy our apples and pears in the bud, and can’t we do anything to prevent it?”“They would indeed be masters had we not vigilant guards, sharp-eyed helpers, that from sunrise to sunset lie in wait for insects and hunt them with a patience, skill, and industry that none of us would be capable of.”“You mean the birds?” said Emile.“Yes, the birds. When you see on an apple-tree in bloom a little bird hopping from branch to branch, warbling and pecking, thank God, my children, for giving us the charming creature that with every peck of its beak delivers us from an enemy.”[328]1See “The Secret of Everyday Things.”↑

CHAPTER XLIIINUT-WEEVILS AND FLOWER-WEEVILS

“Ha, you rascal, I’ve caught you at it now, eating my hazelnuts!” cried Louis one day on seeing a weevil piercing with its long beak a still tender young nut. “I’ve caught you at it. But first I’ll learn all about you, and then we’ll have a reckoning.”Nut-weevilNut-weevila, view from above;b, side view; line shows natural size.The weevil was placed in a paper cornucopia together with some pierced hazelnuts, and in his first spare moment Louis hastened to Uncle Paul’s house, his cheeks flushed with excitement. Little Louis was very fond of hazelnuts, and to catch in the very act the insect that attacks them was a very serious matter, to his thinking. In the evening Uncle Paul had his usual audience around him to listen to his account of the hazelnut-weevil.“Here is the little insect Louis has caught,” he began. “Look at its beak a moment.”“What a nose!” exclaimed Emile. “Oh, what a nose! It is as slender as a hair and very long and turned back at the end.”[322]“Doesn’t it look as if it were smoking a long pipe, as I said the other day?” asked Louis.“See, Uncle,” Emile pointed out, “how close together its eyes are; they almost touch each other, and the insect seems to be squinting. How funny it is, with its nose like a pipe-stem and its squinting eyes!”“Where is its mouth?” asked Jules.“At the very end of what Emile calls its long nose,” his uncle replied.“How does it manage to eat? Food must have a hard time getting through that stem not so big around as a thread.”“Yes, how does it manage to eat?” Emile chimed in. “I should be in a terrible fix if I had to take my food through a straw as long as myself.”“The weevil is obliged to exercise moderation; at the most it drinks with its beak only a few drops of sap from the hazelnut-tree it inhabits. But if the weevil is temperate in its diet, the larva of the weevil eats with a good appetite: it demands the whole kernel of a hazelnut, and it is on purpose to give the larva this food that the weevil is provided with the long beak that astonishes you. The perfect insect, I repeat, lives much more for its future family than for itself, its equipment being designed with reference to the future of its young. If the weevil had to think merely of its own food its trumpet would be highly inconvenient; but it must above all look out for the well-being of its larvæ, and to make provision for that, the creature’s long and slender[323]beak is a wonderful tool, serving as a fine gimlet for boring through the nutshell so that the egg may be laid in the very meat itself and the larva be hatched out in the lap of plenty.”“That must be a long, hard job for so fine a gimlet,” Jules remarked.“Not at all. The tiny mandibles at the end of the trumpet bite the shell almost as easily as an edged tool of steel would do it; and moreover the weevil chooses its time. It is in May, when the hazelnuts are beginning to grow and their shells are soft, that the task is undertaken. The insect attacks the nut at the base through the green covering called the cup. As soon as the hole is made, an egg is laid inside the nut and in a week the larva is hatched out. It is a legless worm, white with a red head. As the grub eats very little at first, the hazelnut continues to grow and its kernel to ripen, though gnawed little by little. When August comes, the store of provision is exhausted and the wormy nut lies on the ground. Then the worm, its mandibles strong by this time, makes a round hole in the empty shell and, leaving the nut, buries itself in the ground, where it undergoes transformation the following spring.”“When I am cracking nuts with my teeth,” said Emile, “I once in a while bite into something bitter and soft.”“That is the grub of the weevil.”“Pah! The nasty thing!”[324]“How can I keep the creatures off my hazelnut-trees?” asked Louis.“That is very simple. Gather the wormy nuts, which sooner or later fall to the ground just as does fruit attacked by insects. If they are not pierced with a large hole the worm is still there. By burning them you destroy the weevils of the following year.”“But this year’s weevils will be left.”“No, for it is a rule that insects die soon after laying their eggs.”“You haven’t told us the name of this hazelnut-eater,” said Jules.“It is called the hazelnut-balaninus or hazelnut-weevil, and you can easily recognize it by its very fine, long, and recurved beak, as also by the yellowish-gray down that covers the whole of the insect.“Another balaninus, smaller but of the same shape and color, lives in acorns in its larva state, and is known as the oak-balaninus. A third, not very often seen around here, lives in cherry-stones. It is the cherry-balaninus.”“How different they all are in their ways of living!” Jules remarked. “The grain-weevil gnaws the kernels of grain; the vine-weevils and fruit-weevils roll leaves or prick pears and plums or cut the buds; and now here are the nut-weevils that attack the hazelnut-meat, the cherry-stone, and the acorn. Are there any that eat flowers?”“Indeed there are. No part of a plant is spared by insects. The apple-tree, the pear-tree, and the[325]cherry-tree have each its peculiar weevil that in its larva state lives at the expense of the flower buds. These ravagers are called by a Greek name meaning flower-eaters. See this apple-tree weevil, the one most familiar to us. It is brown, with a small white stripe edged with black and placed slantwise on the end of each wing sheath. Beginning in April, it spreads over the apple-trees and pierces the flower buds with its fine beak, laying an egg in each one. A week later the larva is hatched out, and immediately the little worm begins to gnaw the flower that is curled up in the bud. Only the outside covering is left intact by this devourer. Of course a bud that has had its heart eaten out cannot blossom, and so flower and fruit are both lost. The damaged buds, being gnawed only within, keep their shape and take in drying the appearance of cloves.”“Those cloves that Mother Ambroisine puts in stews?” asked Emile.“The same.”“What are cloves?”“They are, as I have already told you,1the buds or unopened flowers of the clove-tree, an aromatic bush growing in hot countries. They are gathered before opening and are dried in the sun.”“I see why buds pricked by the flower-weevil look like cloves. In both cases they are buds that have dried up without opening.”“The larva of the flower-weevil, like those of weevils in general, is a tiny legless worm, white in[326]color. It does not leave the bud it has gnawed when this falls from the tree. The larva of the nut-weevil leaves its nut by boring a hole through the shell, that of the conical weevil leaves the fallen shoot, the vine-weevil lets itself drop out of its rolled leaf, and all three bury themselves in the ground to pass the winter in safety and be transformed the following spring. The larva of the flower-weevil is more expeditious: its change into an insect takes place as soon as it has eaten its bud, so that there is no need for it to leave its quarters. As animals never do anything without a purpose, the grub remains shut up in the dry bud. Six weeks after the egg is laid the larva emerges transformed into a perfect insect and flits from one apple-tree to another all summer. Then comes the winter.”“That must be a trying time,” said Jules.“Many perish, but others survive, hidden under moss, in the cracks of bark, or among dry leaves. Indeed, there are plenty of them left to destroy the buds on our apple-trees when spring comes.“The flower-weevil of the pear-tree and that of the cherry-tree resemble the one I have just shown you, and their habits are exactly the same.“It is not easy to get rid of these flower-destroyers. If one had only a few trees to take care of, and those easy to get at in every part, one could if necessary gather and burn the dry buds inhabited by the larvæ. By this painstaking process some of the following year’s fruit might be saved; but not even so should we get rid of all the flower-weevils,[327]as these insects fly well and far and they would come from the surrounding region after we had destroyed all our own. Besides, the gathering of injured buds is impracticable on a large scale.”“Will these little flower-eaters come to be masters of our orchards?” asked Jules. “Will they destroy our apples and pears in the bud, and can’t we do anything to prevent it?”“They would indeed be masters had we not vigilant guards, sharp-eyed helpers, that from sunrise to sunset lie in wait for insects and hunt them with a patience, skill, and industry that none of us would be capable of.”“You mean the birds?” said Emile.“Yes, the birds. When you see on an apple-tree in bloom a little bird hopping from branch to branch, warbling and pecking, thank God, my children, for giving us the charming creature that with every peck of its beak delivers us from an enemy.”[328]

Nut-weevilNut-weevila, view from above;b, side view; line shows natural size.

Nut-weevil

a, view from above;b, side view; line shows natural size.

The weevil was placed in a paper cornucopia together with some pierced hazelnuts, and in his first spare moment Louis hastened to Uncle Paul’s house, his cheeks flushed with excitement. Little Louis was very fond of hazelnuts, and to catch in the very act the insect that attacks them was a very serious matter, to his thinking. In the evening Uncle Paul had his usual audience around him to listen to his account of the hazelnut-weevil.

“Here is the little insect Louis has caught,” he began. “Look at its beak a moment.”

“What a nose!” exclaimed Emile. “Oh, what a nose! It is as slender as a hair and very long and turned back at the end.”[322]

“Doesn’t it look as if it were smoking a long pipe, as I said the other day?” asked Louis.

“See, Uncle,” Emile pointed out, “how close together its eyes are; they almost touch each other, and the insect seems to be squinting. How funny it is, with its nose like a pipe-stem and its squinting eyes!”

“Where is its mouth?” asked Jules.

“At the very end of what Emile calls its long nose,” his uncle replied.

“How does it manage to eat? Food must have a hard time getting through that stem not so big around as a thread.”

“Yes, how does it manage to eat?” Emile chimed in. “I should be in a terrible fix if I had to take my food through a straw as long as myself.”

“The weevil is obliged to exercise moderation; at the most it drinks with its beak only a few drops of sap from the hazelnut-tree it inhabits. But if the weevil is temperate in its diet, the larva of the weevil eats with a good appetite: it demands the whole kernel of a hazelnut, and it is on purpose to give the larva this food that the weevil is provided with the long beak that astonishes you. The perfect insect, I repeat, lives much more for its future family than for itself, its equipment being designed with reference to the future of its young. If the weevil had to think merely of its own food its trumpet would be highly inconvenient; but it must above all look out for the well-being of its larvæ, and to make provision for that, the creature’s long and slender[323]beak is a wonderful tool, serving as a fine gimlet for boring through the nutshell so that the egg may be laid in the very meat itself and the larva be hatched out in the lap of plenty.”

“That must be a long, hard job for so fine a gimlet,” Jules remarked.

“Not at all. The tiny mandibles at the end of the trumpet bite the shell almost as easily as an edged tool of steel would do it; and moreover the weevil chooses its time. It is in May, when the hazelnuts are beginning to grow and their shells are soft, that the task is undertaken. The insect attacks the nut at the base through the green covering called the cup. As soon as the hole is made, an egg is laid inside the nut and in a week the larva is hatched out. It is a legless worm, white with a red head. As the grub eats very little at first, the hazelnut continues to grow and its kernel to ripen, though gnawed little by little. When August comes, the store of provision is exhausted and the wormy nut lies on the ground. Then the worm, its mandibles strong by this time, makes a round hole in the empty shell and, leaving the nut, buries itself in the ground, where it undergoes transformation the following spring.”

“When I am cracking nuts with my teeth,” said Emile, “I once in a while bite into something bitter and soft.”

“That is the grub of the weevil.”

“Pah! The nasty thing!”[324]

“How can I keep the creatures off my hazelnut-trees?” asked Louis.

“That is very simple. Gather the wormy nuts, which sooner or later fall to the ground just as does fruit attacked by insects. If they are not pierced with a large hole the worm is still there. By burning them you destroy the weevils of the following year.”

“But this year’s weevils will be left.”

“No, for it is a rule that insects die soon after laying their eggs.”

“You haven’t told us the name of this hazelnut-eater,” said Jules.

“It is called the hazelnut-balaninus or hazelnut-weevil, and you can easily recognize it by its very fine, long, and recurved beak, as also by the yellowish-gray down that covers the whole of the insect.

“Another balaninus, smaller but of the same shape and color, lives in acorns in its larva state, and is known as the oak-balaninus. A third, not very often seen around here, lives in cherry-stones. It is the cherry-balaninus.”

“How different they all are in their ways of living!” Jules remarked. “The grain-weevil gnaws the kernels of grain; the vine-weevils and fruit-weevils roll leaves or prick pears and plums or cut the buds; and now here are the nut-weevils that attack the hazelnut-meat, the cherry-stone, and the acorn. Are there any that eat flowers?”

“Indeed there are. No part of a plant is spared by insects. The apple-tree, the pear-tree, and the[325]cherry-tree have each its peculiar weevil that in its larva state lives at the expense of the flower buds. These ravagers are called by a Greek name meaning flower-eaters. See this apple-tree weevil, the one most familiar to us. It is brown, with a small white stripe edged with black and placed slantwise on the end of each wing sheath. Beginning in April, it spreads over the apple-trees and pierces the flower buds with its fine beak, laying an egg in each one. A week later the larva is hatched out, and immediately the little worm begins to gnaw the flower that is curled up in the bud. Only the outside covering is left intact by this devourer. Of course a bud that has had its heart eaten out cannot blossom, and so flower and fruit are both lost. The damaged buds, being gnawed only within, keep their shape and take in drying the appearance of cloves.”

“Those cloves that Mother Ambroisine puts in stews?” asked Emile.

“The same.”

“What are cloves?”

“They are, as I have already told you,1the buds or unopened flowers of the clove-tree, an aromatic bush growing in hot countries. They are gathered before opening and are dried in the sun.”

“I see why buds pricked by the flower-weevil look like cloves. In both cases they are buds that have dried up without opening.”

“The larva of the flower-weevil, like those of weevils in general, is a tiny legless worm, white in[326]color. It does not leave the bud it has gnawed when this falls from the tree. The larva of the nut-weevil leaves its nut by boring a hole through the shell, that of the conical weevil leaves the fallen shoot, the vine-weevil lets itself drop out of its rolled leaf, and all three bury themselves in the ground to pass the winter in safety and be transformed the following spring. The larva of the flower-weevil is more expeditious: its change into an insect takes place as soon as it has eaten its bud, so that there is no need for it to leave its quarters. As animals never do anything without a purpose, the grub remains shut up in the dry bud. Six weeks after the egg is laid the larva emerges transformed into a perfect insect and flits from one apple-tree to another all summer. Then comes the winter.”

“That must be a trying time,” said Jules.

“Many perish, but others survive, hidden under moss, in the cracks of bark, or among dry leaves. Indeed, there are plenty of them left to destroy the buds on our apple-trees when spring comes.

“The flower-weevil of the pear-tree and that of the cherry-tree resemble the one I have just shown you, and their habits are exactly the same.

“It is not easy to get rid of these flower-destroyers. If one had only a few trees to take care of, and those easy to get at in every part, one could if necessary gather and burn the dry buds inhabited by the larvæ. By this painstaking process some of the following year’s fruit might be saved; but not even so should we get rid of all the flower-weevils,[327]as these insects fly well and far and they would come from the surrounding region after we had destroyed all our own. Besides, the gathering of injured buds is impracticable on a large scale.”

“Will these little flower-eaters come to be masters of our orchards?” asked Jules. “Will they destroy our apples and pears in the bud, and can’t we do anything to prevent it?”

“They would indeed be masters had we not vigilant guards, sharp-eyed helpers, that from sunrise to sunset lie in wait for insects and hunt them with a patience, skill, and industry that none of us would be capable of.”

“You mean the birds?” said Emile.

“Yes, the birds. When you see on an apple-tree in bloom a little bird hopping from branch to branch, warbling and pecking, thank God, my children, for giving us the charming creature that with every peck of its beak delivers us from an enemy.”[328]

1See “The Secret of Everyday Things.”↑

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