“Doubtless, because then, even if it should by any chance be discovered, it would probably be mistaken for a grain of earth.” “Wouldn’t it be better for it to fly away or run away than to play dead?” “Its flight is too heavy and its legs too short. All insects that cannot take instant flight and are without means of defense do as does the vine-fretter in time of danger: they remain perfectly motionless. Nearly always this expedient succeeds with them because their color, commonly a dull one, causes them to be confounded with the soil.” “Ah, the sly rogues!” “Well, then, this ruse of the vine-fretter must be turned to account by us in our efforts to exterminate the insect. Under the vine we stretch a cloth, after which a sharp blow is given to the main stem. The vine-fretters let themselves fall, they play dead, but they can be seen on the cloth and not one escapes the sad fate awaiting it.” CHAPTER XLII CLEVER MISCHIEF-MAKERS “Here is another weevil I have to show you,” began Uncle Paul the next day. “What do you think of it? Note its shiny violet coat with glints of blue that bring out the delicate down with which the whole body is covered. The purple of our richest silks is not so magnificent.” “Oh, the pretty little thing!” cried Emile. “What can it do with its beautiful clothes?” “Nothing to our advantage, my boy. Fine clothes do not make useful citizens, either among insects or among men. The bee’s dress is a modest brown, and the bee works at honey-making; the dress of the weevil I show you here is very handsome, but the elegant creature lives at our expense. If you have in your garden any fine plums or pears or apples, it gets ahead of you in harvesting the crop; it does not even wait for the fruit to ripen, so fearful is it of being too late. In June it punctures with its pointed snout the young apple or pear or plum and lays an egg in the unripe flesh. The fruit thus treated feeds the larva for some time, and then dries up and falls off. Then the worm emigrates, leaves the plum that has nourished it, and buries itself in the ground to reappear the next spring as a perfect insect.” “I should like to know the name of this plum-pricker; I’d teach it to behave if I got hold of it.” “It is called, very inappropriately, the rhynchites bacchus.” “Bacchus, if I remember rightly,” said Jules, “is the god of wine.”