The grub that lives on the scallop-leaved mullein has shown an utter revolution in the habits of the Weevil clan. The better to judge of this, let us consult a cognate species, placed not far from the Cionus by the classifiers; let us compare the two kinds of life, on the one hand the exception and on the other the rule. The comparison will be all the more useful inasmuch as the new witness also exploits a mullein. It is known as Gymnetron thapsicola, Germ. Dressed in russet homespun, with a plump round body and about the size of the Cionus: there you have the creature. Note the qualifying thapsicola, meaning an inhabitant of the thapsus. On this occasion, I am glad to see, the term could not possibly be happier: it enables the novice to identify the insect exactly, without other data than the name of the plant on which it lives. The botanist gives the name of Verbascum thapsus to the common mullein, or shepherd’s club, a lover of the tilled fields in both the north and the south. Its bloom, instead of branching out like that of the scallop-leaved mullein, consists of one thick cone of yellow flowers. These flowers are followed by close-packed capsules about as big as a fair-sized olive. Here we no longer have the niggardly pods in which the grub of the Cionus would die of starvation if it did not abandon them as soon as it is hatched; these caskets contain plenty of victuals for one larva and even for two. A partition divides them into two equal compartments, both of them crammed with seeds. The fancy took me to estimate roughly the mullein’s wealth of seeds. I have counted as many as 321 in a single shell. Now a spike of ordinary size contains 150 capsules. The total number of seeds is therefore 48,000. What can the plant want with such abundance? Allowing for the small number of seeds required to maintain the species in a thriving state, it is evident that the mullein is a hoarder of nutritive atoms; it creates foodstuffs; it summons guests to its opulent banquet. Knowing these facts, the Gymnetron, from May onwards, visits the luxuriant flower-spike and there installs her grubs. The inhabited capsules may be recognized by the brown speck at their base. This is the hole bored by the mother’s rostrum, the aperture needed for inserting the eggs. Usually there are two, corresponding with the two cells of the fruit. Soon the oozings from the cell set hard and dry and obstruct the tiny window; and the capsule is closed again, without any communication with the outer world.