Peace and comfort seem to reign in the community. There is no quarrelling, no jealous competition among neighbours. The eating has begun, provisions are plentiful and the banqueters are separated from one another by partitions formed by the as yet untouched portions of the seed-lobes. With this isolation in separate cells, there is no fear of squabbles; the guests will not bite one another, by accident or intention. All the occupants enjoy the same rights of property, the same appetite and the same strength. What will be the end of the communal working? I split some peas which I have found to be well-stocked and place them in a glass tube. I add others daily. This method keeps me informed of the boarders’ progress. At first there is nothing special. Isolated in its narrow recess, each grub nibbles around itself and eats frugally and peacefully. It is still quite small; a speck of food surfeits it. Nevertheless, a dish consisting of one pea cannot satisfy so large a number until the end. Famine threatens; all save one must die. Soon indeed the aspect of things changes. One of the grubs, the one occupying the central position in the pea, grows faster than the others. He has hardly begun to be larger than his competitors when these cease to eat and refrain from digging any farther. They lie motionless and resigned; they die the gentle death which reaps unconscious lives. They disappear, wasted away to nothing. They were so tiny, the poor victims! Henceforth the whole pea belongs to the sole survivor. But what has happened, to produce this desolation around the privileged one? For lack of a relevant answer, I will propound a suggestion. In the centre of the pea, more gently stewed than the rest by the sun’s chemistry, may there not be an infant-pap, a pulp of a quality better-suited to the delicate organs of a grub? Here perhaps, stimulated by tender, highly flavoured and sweeter food, the stomach becomes more vigorous and fit to cope with food less easily digested. A baby is fed on milk before it receives the basin of broth and the bread of the able-bodied. Might not the central portion of the pea be the Weevil-grub’s feeding-bottle? Fired by one ambition and endowed with equal rights, all the occupants of the seed set out towards the delicious morsel. It is a laborious journey; and frequent halts are made in temporary recesses. The grubs rest; pending better things to come, they frugally crunch the ripe substance around them; they gnaw even more to open a way than to fill their stomachs.