The work is done. It is a cigar of the diameter of a thick straw and about an inch long. It hangs perpendicularly from the end of the bruised and bent stalk. It has taken the whole of a day to make. After a short spell of rest, the mother tackles a second leaf and, working by night, obtains another scroll. Two in twenty-four hours are as much as the most diligent can achieve. Now what is the roller’s object? Would she go to the length of preparing preserves for her own use? Obviously not: no insect, where itself alone is concerned, devotes such care and patience to the preparation of food. It is only in view of the family that it hoards so industriously. The Rhynchites’ cigar forms the future dowry. Let us unroll it. Here, between the layers of the scroll, is an egg; often there are two, three, or even four. They are oval, pale-yellow and like fine drops of amber. Their adhesion to the leaf is very slight; the least jerk loosens them. They are distributed without order, pushed more or less deeply in the thickness of the cigar and always isolated, singly. We find them in the centre of the scroll, almost at the corner where the rolling begins; we come upon them between the different layers and even near the edge which is sealed in glue with the signet of the rostrum. Without interrupting her work on the scroll, without relaxing the tension of her claws, the mother has laid them between the lips of the fold in formation, as she felt them coming, one by one, duly matured, at the end of her oviduct. She procreates in the midst of her toil in the factory, between the wheels of the machine that would be thrown out of gear if she snatched a moment’s rest. Manufacture and laying go hand-in-hand. Short-lived, with but two or three weeks before her and an expensive family to settle, the Rhynchites would fear to waste her time in churching. This is not all: on the same leaf, not far from the scroll that is being laboriously rolled, we almost always find the male. What is he doing there, the idler? Is he watching the work as a mere inquisitive onlooker, who happened to be passing and stopped to see the machinery go round? Is he interested in the business? Does he ever feel inclined to lend a helping hand, in case of need? One would say so. From time to time, I see him take his stand behind the manufacturer, in the groove of the fold, hang on to the cylinder and join for a little in the work. But this is done without zeal and awkwardly. Half a turn of the wheel, or hardly; and that’s enough for him. After all, it is not his business. He moves away, to the other end of the leaf; he waits, he looks on. Let us give him credit for this attempt: paternal assistance in the settling of the family is very rare among insects; let us congratulate him on the help he gives, but not beyond measure: his was an interested aid. It is to him a means of declaring his flame and urging his merits.