But enough of philosophizing. Let us make the closer acquaintance of the Sloe-weevil. At the end of July, fattened to a nicety, the grub leaves its plum-stone and descends into the ground. With its back and forehead it presses back the surrounding dust and makes itself a spherical recess, slightly reinforced with a glue furnished by the builder, to prevent the earth from falling in. Similar preparations for nymphosis and hibernation are made by the Vine-weevil and the Poplar-weevil; but these are more forward in their development. Before September is over, most of them have achieved the adult form. I see them glittering in the sand of my jars like living nuggets. These golden globules foresee the rapidly approaching winter: as a rule they do not stir from their underground quarters. However, enticed by the hot sunlight, the last of the year, a few Poplar-weevils come up into the open air to see what the weather is like. At the first breath of the north-wind, these venturesome ones will take refuge under the strips of dead bark; perhaps they will even perish. The guest of the sloe is not in such a hurry. Autumn is drawing to a close; and my buried captives are still in the larval state. What matters this delay? They will all be ready when the beloved bush is covered with blossom. By May, in point of fact, the insect abounds on the sloes. This is the time of careless revelry. The fruit is still too small, with its stone not set and its kernel a transparent jelly; it would not suit the grub, but it makes a feast for the adult, who, with an imperceptible movement, without any twisting of the boring-tool, sinks her drill into the pulp, drives it half-way down, holds it there motionless and drinks ecstatically. The juice of the sloe pours over the edge of the well. This affection for the sour sloe is not exclusive. In my breeding-jars, even when the regulation fruit is there, Rhynchites auratus very readily accepts the green cherry and also the orchard plum, as yet hardly the size of an olive. She refuses absolutely, though they are as round and as small as sloes, the fruits of the mahaleb cherry, or Sainte-Lucie cherry, a wilding frequent in the thickets of the neighbourhood. She finds their drug-like flavour repellent. When the egg is at stake, I cannot induce the mother to accept the cultivated plum. In time of dearth, the ordinary cherry seems to be less repugnant. Whereas the mother’s stomach is satisfied with any sort of astringent pulp, the grub’s clamours for a sweet kernel in a small casket which does not offer too much resistance. That of the cherry, seasoned with prussic acid and rather bitter, is accepted only with hesitation; that of the plum, contained in a stone whose strong walls would oppose too great an obstacle first to the entry and then to the exit of the grub, is absolutely disdained. Therefore the pregnant mother, thoroughly versed in her household affairs, refuses for her family any stone fruit other than the sloe.