Neither is the Apoderus a native. She is a castaway, hailing from the hazel-clad heights. She has made the voyage in a little boat, that is to say, in the leafy cockle-shell in which the grub is born. The vessel was tightly closed, which made the passage possible. Running ashore at some point on the bank in the height of summer, the insect perforated its cell and, not finding its favourite tree, established itself upon the alder. There it founded a family, remaining faithful to the same tree for the three years during which I had to do with it. It is probable, for that matter, that the origin of the settlement dates farther back. The history of this stranger interests me. The primordial conditions of her life—climate and food—are changed. Her ancestors lived under a temperate sky; they grazed on the leaf of the hazel-bush; they manufactured cylinders out of piece-goods made familiar by the constant practice of past generations. But the wanderer is living under a torrid sky; she grazes on the alder-leaf, whose flavour and nutritive properties must differ from those of the family diet; she works at an unknown piece, though it is not unlike the normal piece in shape and size. What changes has this disturbance of its diet and climate effected in the insect’s characteristics? Absolutely none. In vain I pass the magnifying-glass over the exploiter of the alder and over the exploiter of the hazel-bush, of whom the latter has reached me from the heart of the Corrèze by post. I see not the least difference between the two, even in the smallest details. Can the method of industry have been modified? Without seeing the work done with a hazel-leaf, I boldly assert that it is similar to that obtained with an alder-leaf. Change the food and the climate, change the materials to be worked: if it can adapt itself to the new conditions imposed upon it, the insect persists, immutable in its craft, habits and organization; if it cannot, it dies. To be as one was or not to be: that is what the castaway of the torrent, like so many others, tells us. Let us watch her at work on the alder and we shall know how she labours on the hazel-bush. The Apoderus does not know the method of the Rhynchites, who, to kill the elasticity of the leaf to be rolled, makes a deep puncture in the stalk. The red leaf-roller has a special modus operandi, in no way related to that of the puncture. Can this change of method be due to the absence of the rostrum, of the fine awl capable of being driven into the narrow leaf-stalk? It is possible, but not certain, for the snout, an excellent pair of shears, could cut half through the leaf-stalk at a bite and obtain an equivalent result. I prefer to see in the novel procedure one of those methods which are the separate property of every specialist. We must never judge of the work by the tool employed. The insect is an adept at using any sort of implement, even though defective.