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She does, in fact, very cautiously withdraw her beak, as though fearing to slip. Once the tool is withdrawn she holds it pointing directly in front of her. The moment has come.... Alas, no! Once more I am cheated; my eight hours of observation have been fruitless. The Balaninus decamps; abandons her acorn without laying her eggs.
The Balaninus has anticipated them all. The mother confided her eggs to the acorns while yet they were green. These have now fallen to earth, brown before their time, and pierced by a round hole through which the larva has escaped after devouring the contents. Under one single oak a basket might easily be filled with these ruined shells.
My seemingly futile pilgrimage ends in success. On the evergreen oaks I surprise a Balaninus with the trunk half sunk in an acorn. Careful observation is impossible while the branches are shaken by the mistral. I detach the twig and lay it gently upon the ground. The insect takes no notice of its removal; it continues its work.
Were man to disappear, annihilated by his own foolish errors, the festival of the life-bringing season would be no less worthily observed, celebrated by the fluting of the yellow-billed songster. To the meritorious rôle of regaling the blackbird, the minstrel of the forest, the Balaninus adds another that of moderating the superfluity of vegetation.
The kermes, a dwarf oak, a ridiculous tree which a man can jump over, surprises me by the wealth of its acorns, which are large, ovoidal growths, the cup being covered with scales. The Balaninus could not make a better choice; the acorn affords a safe, strong dwelling and a capacious storehouse of food.
In this respect, what have the Brachyderes and the Balaninus in common in the eyes of the townsman, the peasant, the child or the Cerceris? Absolutely nothing. The first has an almost cylindrical figure; the second, squat, short and thickset, is conical in front and elliptical, or rather shaped like the ace of hearts, behind.
The drill is implanted in the acorn just a little beyond the tip; the work was only commenced. At the top of the drill, at right angles to it, the Balaninus is suspended in the air, far from the supporting surface of the acorn. It is dried, mummified, dead I know not how long. The legs are rigid and contracted under the body.
In vain do I rack my brains merely to guess at the signs upon which the huntress relies as a guide, without going outside one and the same group, in the midst of such a variety of game; above all by what characteristics she recognizes as a Weevil the strange Acorn Balaninus, the only one among her victims that wears a long pipe-stem.
The first is black, strewn with cloudy, mouse-grey spots; the second is yellow ochre. The head of the first ends in a sort of snout; the head of the second tapers into a curved beak, slender as a horse-hair and as long as the rest of the body. The Brachyderes has a massive proboscis, cut off short; the Balaninus seems to be smoking an insanely long cigarette-holder.
Three species of oak-tree compose the copse inhabited by the Balaninus: the evergreen oak and the pubescent oak, which would become fine trees if the woodman would give them time, and the kermes oak, a mere scrubby bush. The first species, which is the most abundant of the three, is that preferred by the Balaninus.
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