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I record, for whom it may concern, this profound contempt of the Crioceris for the daffodils. An insect's opinion is not to be despised: it tells us that we should obtain a more natural arrangement by separating the daffodils farther from the lilies.
Each plant has its lover, drawn to it by a kind of elective affinity and invariable tendency. The Larra makes for the thistle, the Vanessa for the nettle, the Clytus for the ilex, and the Crioceris for the lily. "The weevil knows nothing but its peas and beans, the golden Rhynchites only the sloe, and the Balaninus only the nut or acorn."
The first is the Crioceris of the Lily, or Lily-beetle. Since Latin words offend our modesty let us just once mention her scientific name, Crioceris merdigera, LIN., without translating it, or, above all, repeating it. Decency forbids. I have never been able to understand why natural history need inflict upon a lovely flower or an engaging animal an odious name.
There is not a patch of green left on them. In botany the lily gives its name to the family of the Liliaceæ, of which it is the leading representative. Those who feed upon the lily ought also, in the absence of anything better, to accept the other plants of the same group. This is my opinion at first; it is not that of the Crioceris, who knows more than I do about the virtues of plants.
In the first of the three tribes, the classic white lily, the plant preferred by the insect, takes the chief place; next come the other lilies and the fritillaries, a diet almost as much sought after; and lastly the tulips, which the season is too far advanced to allow me to submit for the approval of the Crioceris. The third tribe had a great surprise in store for me.
The Field Crioceris fastens her eggs to the leaves and the thin sprays; the other plants them exclusively on the still green fruit of the asparagus, globules the size of a pea. The grubs have to open a tiny passage for themselves and to make their own way into the fruit, of which they eat the pulp. Each globule harbours one larva, no more, or the ration would be insufficient.
If you know the lily, you may name as a Crioceris the tiny scarlet Scarabaeid that inhabits it and peoples its leaves with larvae which keep themselves cool beneath an overcoat of ordure. "The Glow-worm and Other Beetles," by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chapters 16 and 17.
I am all for mutual extermination. Kinsman's flesh or stranger's flesh must be all one to the fangs of the vermin swarming in the Crioceris' belly. Fierce though the competition is among these bandits, the Beetle's race does not threaten to die out. I review the innumerable troop on my asparagus-bed. A good half of them have Tachina-eggs plainly visible as tiny white specks on their green skins.
Our would-be laws contain but an infinitesimal shade of reality; often indeed they are but puffed out with vain imaginings. Such is the law of mimesis, which explains the Green Grasshopper by the green leaves in which this Locust settles and is silent as to the Crioceris, that coral-red Beetle who lives on the no less green leaves of the lily.
The most exposed to parasites is the Field Crioceris, whose larva lives in the open air, without any sort of protection. Next comes the Twelve-spotted Crioceris, who is established in the asparagus-berry from her early infancy. The most favoured is the Lily-beetle, who, while a grub, makes an ulster of her excretions.
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