Boll weevil

“ But when there is a period of continuous rain after the plant has nearly matured, it is a much more difficult problem to handle. The sun has less access to the plant and it is more difficult to secure all the fallen squares.
The greatest problem with which we have had to deal in boll weevil territory is the hopeless view of the farmer. He wants to plow up his cotton and put in something else, or he refuses to give his cotton the attention which it requires. If he follows our plan thoroughly he will succeed, and in future will make his crop hopefully as he did before the boll weevil appeared. ”

“ Many weevils escape from the fields but all do not fly beyond the reach of the farmer. Surprising numbers have been found hibernating in cracks and holes in the ground and under grass, weeds and other trash. In January, 1907, in one instance, the United States Bureau of Entomology found 5,870 weevils per acre of which 70 per cent were alive. Most of the many examinations that have been made have shown more than one thousand live weevils per acre in the cotton fields. ”

“ The fact that the weevil does not move about much except in the fall makes it possible for the individual farmer to accomplish results from his own efforts in fighting the pest. There is little danger of weevils coming in from other fields until in August, by which time the cotton crop is normally set. For this reason, there need be no fear that time will be wasted which is spent in thoroughly picking off the weevils from the young cotton plants before the squares begin to form. ”

“ With his fore-legs the male Weevil masters his spouse; with his hinder tarsi, gently and at intervals, he strokes her sides. Alternating with these soft caresses are sudden jolts and impetuous jerks. Meanwhile, the object of these attentions, in order to lose no time, works at the thistle-head with her beak and prepares the lodging for her egg. Even in the midst of her wedding the care of the family leaves this laborious insect no repose.
What precisely is the use of the Weevil’s rostrum, this paradoxical nose, such as no carnival mummer would venture to wear? ”

“ Thus Esthonian peasants, in the island of Oesel, stand in great awe of the weevil, an insect which is exceedingly destructive to the grain. They give it a fine name, and if a child is about to kill a weevil they say, "Don't do it; the more we hurt him, the more he hurts us." If they find a weevil they bury it in the earth instead of killing it. Some even put the weevil under a stone in the field and offer corn to it. ”

“ A humble Weevil will do what the bird dares not undertake and will do it better. She will entrust her eggs to the white tufts; she will destroy the seed of the ferocious plant, which, were it not subjected to a severe thinning, would become an agricultural calamity.
At the beginning of July I cut off a well-flowered thistle-top; I dip the stem in a bottle full of water and cover my repellent bouquet with a wire-gauze cover, after stocking it with a dozen Weevils. ”

“ In ever-thriving legions, he has come down to us without changing his characteristics. He is to-day as he was in the youth of the continents: the pictures on the chalky slates proclaim the fact aloud. Under any such picture I would venture to write the name of the genus, sometimes even of the species.
Permanence of instinct must go with permanence of form. By consulting the modern Weevil we shall therefore obtain a chapter closely approximate to the biology of his predecessors at the time when Provence was a land of great lakes shaded by palm-trees and filled with Crocodiles. ”

“ The prehistoric animal is first and foremost an atrocious machine for grabbing, with a stomach for digesting. The intellect does not count as yet. That will come later.
The Weevil, in his fashion, repeats these aberrations to a certain extent. See the extravagant appendage to his little head. It is here a short, thick snout; there a sturdy beak, round or cut four-square; elsewhere a foolish reed, thin as a hair, long as the body and longer. At the tip of this egregious instrument, in the terminal mouth, are the fine shears of the mandibles ”

“ At the door of Basterga's room she paused and stood long in thought, gazing at the rushlight she carried on the tray—yet seeing nothing. A sentence, one sentence of all those which Blondel had poured forth—not Blondel the austere Syndic, who had set the lads aside as if they had been schoolboys, but Blondel the man, trembling, holding out suppliant hands—rang again and again in her ears.
"It is health of body, though you be dying as I am, and health of mind, though you be possessed of devils!" Health of body! Health of mind! Health of body! Health of mind! ”

“ It is always, on the contrary, the portion of one alone. Thus we already guess that the grub of the Bear Larinus does not confine itself to lapping up discharges of sap and that it likewise feeds upon its artichoke-heart, the standing dish.
The adult also feeds upon it. On the cone covered with imbricated folioles it makes spacious excavations in which the sweet milk of the plant hardens into white beads. But these broken [46] victuals, these cut cakes off which the Weevil has made her meal, are disdained when the egg-laying comes into question, in June and July. ”

“ The female has a red head and thorax and a black abdomen, with a long boring-tool. The male, a little smaller, is clad in black. Both sexes have dull-red legs and thread-like antennæ.
In order to leave the pea, the exterminator of the Bruchus opens herself a window in the centre of the disk which the Weevil’s grub has bored in the skin with a view to its future deliverance. The devoured has prepared the way out for the devourer. ”

“ I jest pottered about by the house into the afternoon, looking out every now and ag’in to see if Bolo were coming back, when of a sudden I see him tearing acrost the veld. He shot by me into the house, and hang me if he didn’t bang the door in my face, and at the same time that honey-bird lighted on the roof. You never see sich a sight as that bird. He opened his mouth, spread his wings, rolled about and laughed fit to bust himself. Bymby he flew away with a final screech, and Bolo opened the door, his natrally black face being green, his lips curled back from his teeth, and his eyes rolling. ”

“ Claude leant back against the wall. The girl alone—she alone moved. Without speaking, without looking, as a bird flies to its young, she sprang to the stairs and fled up them.
The maniacal laugh, the crazy words—a moment only, they heard them: and then the door above, which the poor woman, so long bedridden, had contrived in her frenzy of fear to open, closed on the sounds and stifled them. But enough had been heard: enough to convince Blondel, enough to justify Basterga, enough to change the fortunes of more than one in the room. The scholar's eyes met the Syndic's. ”

“ Blondel replied firmly, "let all understand, that while I will do my duty I am no longer in the position to guard against sudden strokes, in which I should have been, had I been allowed to go my own way. If a misfortune happen, it is not on me the blame must rest." He spoke solemnly, laughing in his sleeve at the cleverness with which he was turning his enemy's petard against him. "All that man can do in the dark shall be done," he continued. "And I do not—I am free to confess that—anticipate anything while the negotiations with the President Rochette are in progress." ”

“ Well, all these fruits are accepted as eagerly as those of the yellow iris. The Weevil riddles them with punctures, strips them bare, pierces them with windows. The capsules of my choosing and those from the banks of the stream, which are normally used, often lie side by side; the consumer makes no distinction between them, but goes without hesitation from one to the other, attacking them with a zeal which is in no wise impaired by the novelty of the dish. It considers everything good to eat, so long as it comes from an iris of some sort or other. ”

“ We were saying that, if the Weevil assumed her final shape in the nut, she would be incapable of effecting her own release. Yet with her drill she is very well able to perforate the shell when the egg has to be installed. Why should she be prevented from doing in the inverse direction what she is able to perform inwards from without? A little reflection will show us the tremendous difficulty. ”

“ The Syndic was on his feet again, shaking like a leaf.
"Ay?" Basterga blew his nose to hide the flash of triumph that shone in his eyes. "You will be wise in time? Well, I am not surprised. I thought that you [Pg 241] would not be so mad—that no man could be so mad as to throw away life for a shadow!"
"But mind you," Blondel snarled, "the proof. I must have the proof," he repeated. He was anxious to persuade himself that his surrender depended on a condition; he would fain hide his shame under a show of bargaining. "The proof, man, or I will not take a step." ”

“ Even within the narrow bounds of the forecourt, objects at a distance put on queer shapes and showed new faces. Nothing in all that was visible took from the ominous aspect of the two men with the firearms. One for each, Bale thought. And his face, always pallid, showed livid in the morning light.
Without a word the four men formed up round their prisoners, and at once O'Sullivan Og led the way at a brisk pace towards the gate. Colonel John was following, but he had not taken three steps before a thought struck him, and he halted. "Are we leaving the house at once?" he asked. ”

“ The scholar laughed contemptuously. "Then is the test easy," he said. "If it be the remedium you will find her mother, who has not left her bed for three years, grown strong and well and vigorous, and like to him who lifted up his bed and walked. But if it be the love-philtre, you have but to come with me, and you will find her——" He did not finish the sentence, but a shrug of his shoulders and a mysterious smile filled the gap.
Imperceptibly Blondel had raised himself in his chair. The gleam of hope, once lighted in his eyes, was growing bright. "How?" he asked. "How shall we find her? ”

“ It is not too late, Messer Blondel—even now. While there is life there is hope, there is more than hope. There is certainty."
"Is there?" Blondel cried; he extended a lean hand, shaking with vindictive passion. "Is there? Go and look in your casket, fool! Go and look in your steel box!" he hissed. "Go! And see if it be not too late!"
For a moment Basterga peered at him, his brow contracted, his eyes screwed up. ”

“ That was the fear in Blondel's mind; the alarm was growing louder each moment, and drawing nearer. And then in a twinkling, in two or three sentences, Basterga put that fear into the second place, and set in its seat emotions that brooked no rival. [Pg 356]
"Why not both?" he said, jeering. "Live and be Syndic, both? Because you had the scholar's ill, eh, Messer Blondel? Or because your physician said you had it—to whom I paid a good price—for the advice?" The devil seemed to look out of the man's eyes, as he spoke in short sentences, each pointed, each conveying a heart-stab to its hearer. ”

“ Bolo he grunted. For a heathen he’s spry, but it was his lazy time, and for another thing he was in the middle of a long-winded story, which he was bound to finish, being a born talker, and very strong ag’inst being interrupted.
“‘Chet-chet-chet-chee!’ said the honey-bird, jumping from one branch to another all in a quiver of impatience.
“‘Come on,’ says I, ‘let’s see what sort of a nest he’s got.’
“‘That bird is a mischief bird,’ said Bolo; ‘he will lead us to a snake or a tiger. Eweh! ”

“ Never!" Blondel shrieked. And after a pause, "Curse you!" he added. "It is your doing!"
Basterga stared. He was in the dark as to what had [Pg 232] happened, though the Syndic's manner on leaving the bridge had prepared him for something. "My doing, Messer Blondel?" he said. "Why? What have I done?"
"Done?"
"Ay, done! It was not my fault," the scholar continued, with a touch of sternness, "that I could not offer you the remedium on easy terms. Nor mine, that hard as the terms were, you did not accept them. Besides," he continued, slowly and with meaning,
"Terque quaterque redit! ”

“ From that point the track mounted between the bracken-covered flanks of the ravine until it emerged on the crown of the moor. In one place both path and glen turned at a sharp angle, and Woolley at this corner happened to lift his eyes. He stopped short with an exclamation. Before him, strolling slowly along in the same direction as himself, with his hands behind him and his eyes on the path, was the tall gentleman--Walton.
"Ah!" Woolley whispered to himself, hating the other the more for falling in his way now, "the devil take you for a mooning lunatic! ”

“ God keep us from high place!"
"Sure and we're in little peril!" O'Sullivan Og replied.
Colonel John looked at the priest with solemn eyes. Nor did aught but a tiny pulse beating in his cheek betray that every sense was on the stretch; that he was listening, watching, ready to seize the least chance, that he might save, at any rate, poor Bale. Then, "You are a Christian, father," he said gravely. "I ask nothing for myself. But this is my servant. He has done nothing, he knows nothing. Prevail with them to spare him!" ”

“ Ever since the coming of the wolf the topic of its depredations had been an unwelcome one in the household of the Château Doré.
"Mon Dieu, Jacques!" exploded the head of the house. "Have you, too, been listening to the old wives' tales? Must you be such an imbecile, and I your father? Rubbish! There can be no werewolves; has not the most excellent Father Cromecq flouted such stones ten thousand times? It is a common wolf; a large one, true, but nevertheless a common mongrel, a beast from the distant mountain. ”