“Exactly; and that is where the word is out of place here. No doubt the first observers confounded the weevil of our orchards with that of our vineyards, giving to the former the name that should belong to the latter. But the mistake has been made and we can’t do anything about it now. Let us keep the names as they are, but not confound the two weevils so different in appearance and habits. The weevil that rolls the vine leaves is hairless and of a golden-green color; the other is all covered with hairs and its color is a lustrous violet. To avoid confusion in our talk, why should we not call this latter insect the plum-weevil, or the pear-weevil?” “That would be a good name for it,” assented Louis. “I shall just call it the plum-pricker,” declared Emile. “There is no reason why you should not,” his uncle agreed. “Now let us pass on to another member of the family. See what widely dissimilar habits there are in a group of insects in which the expert eye can nevertheless perceive close resemblances, I might almost say a near relationship. Some roll grape or oak or poplar leaves; others puncture fruit with the beak; this one here that I am going to tell you about severs—partly, never wholly—the tips of young and tender shoots of various fruit-trees. Hence they are commonly known as bud-cutters. It is a weevil, but much smaller than that of the grapevine. The adjective conical is given to it on account of the shape of its thorax or breastplate, which tapers a little toward the front like a sugar-loaf. It is rather lustrous and of a blue color shading into green. “It shows remarkable cleverness in its operations. Establishing itself in spring on a pear, cherry, apricot, plum, or hawthorn tree, indifferently, it selects one by one the shoots that suit it, and in the not yet unfolded terminal bud it bores with its beak a tiny hole, in which it lays an egg. But it appears that the young larva requires a diet especially prepared for it, one that is slightly decomposed, and not the bitter juices of the vigorously growing shoot. Have not we ourselves similar tastes? Do we eat medlars and sorb-apples just as they come from the tree? No indeed; they must first be left to ripen on straw, even to decay a little.” “Then they are first-rate,” was Emile’s pronouncement; “but before that they are horrid.” “That is what the larva of the weevil would say about the shoot on which it has just hatched out. Before being treated it is bitter, it rasps the throat and sets the mandibles on edge; after treatment it is delicious.” “Yet it doesn’t put the branch to ripen on straw as we do medlars?”