To each its mess. The cabbage Pieris consumes the pungent leaves of the Cruciferae as the food of her infancy; the Silkworm disdains any foliage other than that of the mulberry-tree. The Spurge Hawk-moth requires the caustic milk-sap of the tithymals: the Corn-weevil the grain of wheat; the Pea-weevil, the seeds of the Leguminosae; the Balaninus (A genus of Beetles including the Acorn-weevil, the Nut-weevil and others.--Translator's Note.) the hazel-nut, the chestnut, the acorn; the Brachycera (A division of Flies including the Gad-flies and Robber-flies.--Translator's Note.) the clove of garlic. Each has its diet, each its plant; and each plant has its customary guests. Their relations are so precise that in many cases one might determine the insect by the vegetable which supports it, or the vegetable by the insect. If you know the lily, you may name as a Crioceris the tiny scarlet Scarabaeid that inhabits it and peoples its leaves with larvae which keep themselves cool beneath an overcoat of ordure. (For the Lily-beetle, or Crioceris merdigera, cf. "The Glow-worm and Other Beetles," by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chapters 16 and 17.--Translator's Note.) If you know the Crioceris, you may name as a lily the plant which she devastates. It will not perhaps be the common or white lily, but some other representative of the same family--Turk's cap lily, orange lily, scarlet Martagon, lancifoliate lily, tiger-spotted lily, golden lily--hailing from the Alps or the Pyrenees, or brought from China or Japan. Relying on the Crioceris, who is an expert judge of exotic as well as of native Liliaceae, you may name as a lily the plant with which you are unacquainted and trust the word of this singular botanical master. Whether the flower be red, yellow, ruddy-brown or sown with crimson spots, characteristics so unlike the immaculate whiteness of the familiar flower, do not hesitate, adopt the name dictated by the Beetle. Where man is liable to mistake the insect is never mistaken.