After the field-mouse, the jay, the weevil, and so many others have taken toll comes man, calculating how many pounds of bacon-fat his harvest will be worth.  One regret mingles with the cheer of the occasion; it is to see so many acorns scattered on the ground which are pierced, spoiled, good for nothing.  And man curses the author of this destruction; to hear him you would think the forest is meant for him alone, and that the oaks bear acorns only for the sake of his pig.

My friend, I would say to him, the forest guard cannot take legal proceedings against the offender, and it is just as well, for our egoism, which is inclined to see in the acorn only a garland of sausages, would have annoying results.  The oak calls the whole world to enjoy its fruits.  We take the larger part because we are the stronger.  That is our only right.

More important than our rights is the equitable division of the fruits of the earth between the various consumers, great and little, all of whom play their part in this world.  If it is good that the blackbird should flute and rejoice in the burgeoning of the spring, then it is no bad thing that acorns should be worm-eaten.  In the acorn the dessert of the blackbird is prepared; the Balaninus, the tasty mouthful that puts flesh upon his flanks and music into his throat.

Let the blackbird sing, and let us return to the eggs of the Curculionidae.  We know where the egg is—­at the base of the acorn, because the tenderest and most juicy tissues of the fruit are there.  But how did it get there, so far from the point of entry?  A very trifling question, it is true; puerile even, if you will.  Do not let us disdain to ask it; science is made of these puerilities.

The first man to rub a piece of amber on his sleeve and to find that it thereupon attracted fragments of chaff had certainly no vision of the electric marvels of our days.  He was amusing himself in a childlike manner.  Repeated, tested, and probed in every imaginable way, the child’s experiment has become one of the forces of the world.

The observer must neglect nothing; for he never knows what may develop out of the humblest fact.  So again we will ask:  by what process did the egg of the elephant-beetle reach a point so far from the orifice in the acorn?

To one who was not already aware of the position of the egg, but knew that the grub attacked the base of the acorn first, the solution of that fact would be as follows:  the egg is laid at the entrance of the tunnel, at the surface, and the grub, crawling down the gallery sunk by the mother, gains of its own accord this distant point where its infant diet is to be found.

Before I had sufficient data this was my own belief; but the mistake was soon exposed.  I plucked an acorn just as the mother withdrew, after having for a moment applied the tip of the abdomen to the orifice of the passage just opened by her rostrum.  The egg, so it seemed, must be there, at the entrance of the passage....  But no, it was not!  It was at the other extremity of the passage!  If I dared, I would say it had dropped like a stone into a well.