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.[4] 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.

In the caressing sunlight of ten o'clock in the morning, the mother runs
up and down the chosen pod, first on one side, then on the other, with
a jerky, capricious, unmethodical gait. She repeatedly extrudes a short
oviduct, which oscillates right and left as though to graze the skin of
the pod. An egg follows, which is abandoned as soon as laid.