The Spangled Larinus extends her domain still farther. Though she has not the fierce thistle with the white heads, she recognizes the good qualities of another vegetable horror, one with pink heads this time. This is the common horse-thistle (Cirsium lanceolatum, Scop.). The difference in the colour of the flowers causes her no hesitation. Can she be apprised by the majestic stature, by the sturdy prickles? No, for we next see her established on a humble and much less savage plant, Carduus nigrescens, Vill., which rises hardly more than nine inches from the ground. Can it be the size of the heads that regulates her choice? Not so, either, for the paltry heads of Carduus tenuiflorus, Cart., are accepted as readily as the sizable blooms of the above three thistles. But the subtle expert is even cleverer than this. Regardless of mien, foliage, flavour or colour, she actively exploits Kentrophyllum lanatum, D. C., a plant with wretched yellow flowers soiled by the dust of the roads. To recognize a Carduacea in this dry and unsightly plant you have to be a botanist or a Weevil. A fourth Larinus (L. scolymi, Oliv.) surpasses the Spangled Larinus. We find her at work on the garden artichoke and the garden cardoon, both of them giants that lift their great blue heads to a height of six feet and more. We meet her afterwards on a niggardly centaury (Centaurea aspera, Lin.), with ragged heads, smaller than the tip of one’s little finger, trailing on the ground; we see her founding colonies on the various thistles beloved of the Spangled Larinus, even on Kentrophyllum lanatum. Her botanical knowledge of plants so dissimilar gives us food for reflection. As a Weevil, she recognizes very clearly, without resorting to tests, what is artichoke-heart and what is not, what suits her offspring and what would harm it; and I, as a naturalist, versed by assiduous practice in the flora of my district, would not dare, without prudent inquiries, to bite into this or that fruit or berry were I suddenly transported to another country. She is born with her knowledge; and I have to learn. Every summer, with superb audacity, she goes from her thistle to various others which, having no similarity of appearance, ought, one would think, to be rejected as suspicious hostelries. On the contrary, she accepts them, recognizes them as her own; and her confidence is never betrayed. Her guide is instinct, which instructs her unerringly, within a very restricted circle; mine is intelligence, which gropes, seeks, goes astray, finds its way again and ends by soaring with an incomparable flight. The Larinus knows the flora of the thistles without having learnt it; man knows the flora of the world after long study. The domain of instinct is a speck; that of intelligence is the universe. CHAPTER V THE ELEPHANT WEEVIL