There is a reason for these nocturnal habits. I think I see what it is. The leaf of the oak, especially of the holm-oak, is much harder to bend than the leaf of the alder, the poplar or the vine. If rolled in the daytime, under the burning rays of the sun, it would add to the difficulties arising from indifferent flexibility those due to incipient dryness. On the other hand, when visited by the dew, in the coolness of the night, it will remain pliable; it will yield adequately to the efforts of the roller; and the barrel will be ready when the sun comes, with its blazing heat, to steady the shape of the still moist fabric. However different one from the other, the four leaf-rollers have shown us that the individual craft is not a matter of organic structure, that the tool does not determine the nature of the work. Whether endowed with a rostrum or a snout, whether long-legged or slow, slender or thickset, perforators or cutters-out, they all four achieve the same result, the cylinder that acts as a shelter and a larder for the grub. They tell us that instinct has its origin elsewhere than in the organs. It goes farther back; it is inscribed in the primeval code of life. Far from being dependent on the tools, it commands them and is able to employ them as it finds them, with the same skill, for one task here and for another there. The little cooper of the oak-tree has not finished with her revelations. Having observed her pretty frequently, I know how fastidious she is of the quality of her victuals. If they be dry, she refuses them absolutely, even though it means dying of starvation. She wants them tender, pickled in moisture, softened by incipient decay, even seasoned with a touch of mildew. I prepare them to her liking by keeping them in a jar on a bed of moist sand. Thus treated, the grub hatched in June soon increases in size. Two months are enough to turn it into a handsome orange-yellow larva, which, when its cell is broken open, suddenly, with the violence of a spring released, straightens its curved body and tosses about. Observe its slender form, much less stout than that of the other Weevils in general. This is the only instance in which lack of corpulence in the larva denotes an adult of an exceptional class. I shall say no more on the subject of the grub: its description would be of no particular interest. The matter deserves looking into more closely. It is the end of September; we have been suffering from an extraordinarily hot and dry summer. The dog-days seem determined to last for ever. The forests are ablaze in the Ardèche, the Bordeaux and the Roussillon districts; whole villages have been burnt down on the slopes of the Alps; in front of my door, a careless passer-by, throwing away a match, sets fire to the neighbouring meadows. You cannot call it a summer: it is a conflagration.