Some of our machines have odd-looking parts which seem inexplicable so long as they are seen in repose. But wait until the whole is set in motion, when the uncouth contrivance, with its gear-wheels biting and its jointed rods opening and closing, will reveal an ingenious combination wherein everything is cunningly arranged in view of the effects to be obtained. It is the same with various Weevils, notably the Balanini, [38] who, as their name tells us, are charged with the exploitation of acorns, nuts, and other similar fruits. The most remarkable in my part of the country is the Elephant Weevil, or Acorn-weevil (Balaninus elephas, Sch.). What a well-named insect! Its title is a picture in itself. It is a living caricature, with its prodigious pipe-stem, no thicker than a horse-hair, reddish, almost straight and so long that the insect is obliged to carry it extended like a lance at rest, lest it should stumble, hampered by its instrument. What does it do with this enormous pike, with this ridiculous nose? Here I see some shrugging their shoulders. In fact, if the sole object of life is to make money by hook or by crook, such queries are sheer madness. Happily there are others to whom nothing in the majestic problem of things is trivial. They know of what humble dough the bread of thought is kneaded, a bread no less necessary than that made from wheat; they know that husbandmen and inquirers alike feed the world with an accumulation of minute fragments. Let us take pity on the question and proceed. Without seeing it at work, we already suspect the Weevil’s paradoxical beak of being a drill similar to those which we employ to bore through the hardest substances. Two diamond-points, the mandibles, form its terminal bit. Like the Larini, but under conditions of greater difficulty, the Weevil must use it to prepare the way for installing the egg. But suspicion, however well-founded, is not certainty. I shall not know the secret unless and until I witness the performance. Chance, the servant of those who solicit her patiently, procures me a meeting with the Acorn-weevil at work in the first fortnight of October. My surprise is great, for at this late period all industrial activity as a rule is at an end. The entomological season closes with the first touch of cold. It happens to be wild weather to-day; an icy north-wind is roaring, chapping one’s lips. One needs a stout faith to go out on a day like this to inspect the thickets. Yet, if the Weevil with the long churchwarden exploits the acorns, as I imagine that she does, now or never is the time to look into things. The acorns, still green, have attained their full dimensions. In two or three weeks they will possess the deep brown of perfect maturity, soon to be followed by their fall.