They settle on the flowers, which are not unlike white-winged butterflies.  I see them at the base of the blossom or inside the cavity of the “keel” of the flower, but the majority explore the petals and take possession of them.  The time for laying the eggs has not yet arrived.  The morning is mild; the sun is warm without being oppressive.  It is the moment of nuptial flights; the time of rejoicing in the splendour of the sunshine.  Everywhere are creatures rejoicing to be alive.  Couples come together, part, and re-form.  When towards noon the heat becomes too great, the weevils retire into the shadow, taking refuge singly in the folds of the flowers whose secret corners they know so well.  To-morrow will be another day of festival, and the next day also, until the pods, emerging from the shelter of the “keel” of the flower, are plainly visible, enlarging from day to day.

A few gravid females, more pressed for time than the others, confide their eggs to the growing pod, flat and meagre as it issues from its floral sheath.  These hastily laid batches of eggs, expelled perhaps by the exigencies of an ovary incapable of further delay, seem to me in serious danger; for the seed in which the grub must establish itself is as yet no more than a tender speck of green, without firmness and without any farinaceous tissue.  No larva could possible find sufficient nourishment there, unless it waited for the pea to mature.

But is the grub capable of fasting for any length of time when once hatched?  It is doubtful.  The little I have seen tells me that the new-born grub must establish itself in the midst of its food as quickly as possible, and that it perishes unless it can do so.  I am therefore of opinion that such eggs as are deposited in immature pods are lost.  However, the race will hardly suffer by such a loss, so fertile is the little beetle.  We shall see directly how prodigal the female is of her eggs, the majority of which are destined to perish.

The important part of the maternal task is completed by the end of May, when the shells are swollen by the expanding peas, which have reached their final growth, or are but little short of it.  I was anxious to see the female Bruchus at work in her quality of Curculionid, as our classification declares her.[8] The other weevils are Rhyncophora, beaked insects, armed with a drill with which to prepare the hole in which the egg is laid.  The Bruchus possesses only a short snout or muzzle, excellently adapted for eating soft tissues, but valueless as a drill.

The method of installing the family is consequently absolutely different.  There are no industrious preparations as with the Balinidae, the Larinidae, and the Rhynchitides.  Not being equipped with a long oviscapt, the mother sows her eggs in the open, with no protection against the heat of the sun and the variations of temperature.  Nothing could be simpler, and nothing more perilous to the eggs, in the absence of special characteristics which would enable them to resist the alternate trials of heat and cold, moisture and drought.