Apparently the flowerpot with its evergreen oak did not sufficiently fulfil the conditions of prosperity. There should have been also some grasses with underground rootstocks: in short, a jungle of herbaceous vegetation, rich in superficial root-fibres in which the young Kermes would have implanted their suckers. Is this the trouble? I continue my investigations in the open country, at the foot of some evergreen oaks which, I noted, were thickly populated in May. The families of Lice are certainly there, within a fairly small radius, for the puny little creatures are incapable of a lengthy journey. I inspect the varied vegetation covering the ground beneath the trees; I dig, uproot, and patiently, lens in hand, examine one by one the roots and stems grubbed up. Repeatedly resumed, in winter as well as in autumn, my laborious investigations are fruitless; the tiny Louse cannot be found. The following year, on the return of spring, I was to learn that the presence of vegetation at the foot of the tree is not a necessity. Let us go back to the evergreen oak in the orchard. I peopled its foliage with some thirty Kermes which had reached maturity. There emerged from it, caravan by caravan, a multitude of Lice. Now, at the foot of this tree and all around it, for a distance of some yards, the soil is perfectly bare. Not a blade of grass, not a weed of any sort, has sprouted on this surface, so recently excavated by the spade. As for the roots of the oak itself, it is, as far as I can judge, useless to take them into account; for they lie at depths which the tiny Louse could never attain. Yet in May the tree, hitherto exempt from Kermes, is covered with black pills. My sowing has prospered; the young Lice which emerged from the shells have passed the winter underground, and on the advent of warm weather have returned to the tree, there to transform themselves into globules. What did they live on in this ungrateful soil, which contains not a single root-fibre? Probably on nothing at all. They descend to earth in search of shelter rather than refreshment. Their refuge against the inclemencies of winter is precarious indeed, if it consists, as everything seems to declare, in a few cracks in some lump of earth, not far from the surface. In a hard winter, how many of these ill-protected creatures must disappear? To the ravages of the devourers of new-laid eggs we must add the more dreadful depredations of winter; and thus it is that in order to preserve one life the Kermes gives birth to thousands upon thousands.