THE ELEPHANT WEEVIL
Some of our machines have odd-looking parts which seem inexplicable so
long as they are seen in repose. But wait until the whole is set in
motion, when the uncouth contrivance, with its gear-wheels biting and
its jointed rods opening and closing, will reveal an ingenious
combination wherein everything is cunningly arranged in view of the
effects to be obtained. It is the same with various Weevils, notably
the Balanini, [38] who, as their name tells us, are charged with the
exploitation of acorns, nuts, and other similar fruits.
The most remarkable in my part of the country is the Elephant Weevil,
or Acorn-weevil (Balaninus elephas, Sch.). What a well-named insect!
Its title is a picture in itself. It is a living caricature, with its
prodigious pipe-stem, no thicker than a horse-hair, reddish, almost
straight and so long that the insect is obliged to carry it extended
like a lance at rest, lest it should stumble, hampered by its
instrument. What does it do with this enormous pike, with this
ridiculous nose?
Here I see some shrugging their shoulders. In fact, if the sole object
of life is to make money by hook or by crook, such queries are sheer
madness. Happily there are others to whom nothing in the majestic
problem of things is trivial. They know of what humble dough the bread
of thought is kneaded, a bread no less necessary than that made from
wheat; they know that husbandmen and inquirers alike feed the world
with an accumulation of minute fragments.
Let us take pity on the question and proceed. Without seeing it at
work, we already suspect the Weevil’s paradoxical beak of being a drill
similar to those which we employ to bore through the hardest
substances. Two diamond-points, the mandibles, form its terminal bit.
Like the Larini, but under conditions of greater difficulty, the Weevil
must use it to prepare the way for installing the egg.
But suspicion, however well-founded, is not certainty. I shall not know
the secret unless and until I witness the performance.
Chance, the servant of those who solicit her patiently, procures me a
meeting with the Acorn-weevil at work in the first fortnight of
October. My surprise is great, for at this late period all industrial
activity as a rule is at an end. The entomological season closes with
the first touch of cold.
It happens to be wild weather to-day; an icy north-wind is roaring,
chapping one’s lips. One needs a stout faith to go out on a day like
this to inspect the thickets. Yet, if the Weevil with the long
churchwarden exploits the acorns, as I imagine that she does, now or
never is the time to look into things. The acorns, still green, have
attained their full dimensions. In two or three weeks they will possess
the deep brown of perfect maturity, soon to be followed by their fall.
My hare-brained excursion gives me a success. On the ilexes I surprise
a Weevil, with her proboscis half-sunk in an acorn. To observe her with
due care is impossible while the branches are being lashed and shaken
by the mistral. I break off the twig and lay it gently on the ground.
The insect takes no notice of its removal and goes on with its job. I
squat down beside it, sheltered from the gale behind a clump of
brushwood, and watch operations.
Shod with clinging sandals which will enable her later, in my cages, to
scale a perpendicular pane of glass, the Weevil is firmly fixed on the
smooth and sloping curve of the acorn. She is working her drill. Slowly
and awkwardly she moves around her implanted rod, describes a
semicircle whose centre is the perforated point and then, retracing her
steps, describes the semicircle in the reverse direction. And this is
repeated several times over. We do the same when, by an alternating
movement of the wrist, we make a hole in a piece of wood with a
bradawl.
Little by little the rostrum enters. In an hour’s time it has
disappeared entirely. A brief rest follows. Then at last the instrument
is withdrawn. What will happen next? Nothing more, this time. The
Weevil abandons her shaft and solemnly retires, hiding among the dead
leaves. I shall learn no more to-day.
But I have been given a hint. On still days, more favourable to my
hunting, I return to the spot and soon have the wherewithal to stock my
cages. Foreseeing serious difficulties because of the slowness of the
work, I prefer to continue my studies indoors, with the unlimited
leisure to be found at home.
This was an excellent precaution. If I had tried to go on as I had
begun and to observe the Weevil’s actions in the freedom of the woods,
never should I have had the patience to follow to the end the choice of
the acorn, the boring of the hole and the laying of the eggs—even
presuming that my discoveries were propitious—so meticulously
deliberate is the insect in its business, as the reader will presently
be able to judge.
The copses frequented by my Weevil are composed of three kinds of oaks:
the ilex and the durmast, which would become fine trees if the
woodcutter gave them time, and lastly the kermes-oak, a wretched,
scrubby bush. The first, the most plentiful of the three, is the
Weevil’s favourite. Its acorns are firm, long in shape and moderate in
size; the cup is covered with little warts. Those of the durmast oak
are generally stunted, short, wrinkled and subject to premature falls.
The dryness of the Sérignan hills does not suit them. The Weevil
therefore accepts them only in the absence of something better.
The humility of the kermes, a dwarf shrub, a truly comic oak, which a
man can step over at a stride, is contrasted by the wealth of its
acorns, which are large, swelling ovoids, set in a cup bristling with
sharp scales. The Weevil could not have a better home. It forms a
strong dwelling and a copious storehouse.
I place a few sprigs from these three oaks, well-furnished with acorns,
under the dome of my wire-gauze covers, with their ends dipped in a
tumbler of water to keep them fresh; I install a suitable number of
couples; lastly, I stand the cages on the window-sills of my study,
where they get the direct sunlight for the greater part of the day. Let
us now possess our souls in patience and keep a constant watch. We
shall be rewarded. The exploitation of the acorn is worth seeing.
Things do not drag on so very long. Two days after these preparations,
I arrive at the exact moment when the work begins. The mother, larger
than the male and supplied with a longer drill, is inspecting her
acorn, no doubt in view of the eggs.
She goes over it step by step, from tip to stem, above and below.
Walking is easy on the wrinkled cup; it would be impracticable on the
rest of the surface if the soles of her feet were not shod with
clinging pattens, with brushes which enable her to keep her balance in
any position. Without tripping or stumbling, therefore, the insect
walks with equal ease, over the top or bottom or up the sides of her
slippery pedestal.
The choice is made; the acorn is recognized as being of good quality.
The time has come to sink the hole. The rod is difficult to wield,
because of its excessive length. To obtain the best mechanical effect,
the instrument must be held at right angles to the convex surface; and
the cumbrous tool which, out of working-hours, projects in front of the
worker must now be brought under her.
To achieve this object, the Weevil raises herself on her hind-legs and
stands on the tripod formed by the tip of the wing-cases and of the
hinder tarsi. Nothing could be droller than this strange well-sinker,
standing erect and drawing her nasal rapier towards her.
The trick is done: the drill is now held plumb. The boring begins. The
method is that which I saw employed in the woods, on the day when the
wind was so strong. Very slowly, the insect veers from right to left
and from left to right alternately. Her tool is not a gimlet, a spiral,
corkscrew-like implement which enters as the result of a rotary
movement always in one direction; it is a trocar which progresses by
successive bites, by eating away now in one direction, now in another.
Before continuing, let me give room to an accidental fact, which is too
striking to be passed over. On various occasions I have found the
insect dead at its work. The deceased occupies a strange position,
which would give food for laughter if death were not always a serious
event, especially when it comes suddenly, in the midst of toil. The
boring-tool is implanted in the acorn merely by its tip: the work was
just beginning. At the top of the rod, a lethal stake, the Weevil is
suspended in mid-air, at right angles, far from the supporting surface.
She is dried-up, dead since I know not how many days. The legs are
stiff and contracted under the abdomen. Even if they retained the
flexibility and the power of extension which was theirs in life, they
would not be able, by a long way, to reach the support of the acorn.
What has happened then, that the poor wretch should be impaled like an
insect in our collections with a pin stuck through its head?
What has happened is a workshop-accident. Because of the length of her
bradawl, the Weevil begins by working upright, standing on her
hind-legs. Imagine a slip, a false move of the two clinging grapnels;
and the unskilful Weevil will instantly lose her footing, dragged away
by the elasticity of the probe, which she must have forced slightly and
bent at the start. Thus lifted to some distance from her foothold, she
vainly struggles, hanging in the air; nowhere can her tarsi, those
safety anchors, find anything to grip. She succumbs exhausted at the
top of her stake, for lack of a support whereby to release herself.
Like the workmen in our factories, the Elephant Weevil also is
sometimes the victim of her machinery. Let us wish her good luck and
sure feet, careful not to slip, and continue.
This time the mechanism works perfectly, but so slowly that the descent
of the drill, even when magnified by the lens, cannot be perceived. And
the insect veers and veers about, rests and again resumes her work. An
hour, two hours pass, of enervating, sustained attention, for I want to
see the action at the exact moment when the Weevil withdraws her probe,
turns round and deposits her egg at the mouth of the well. This at
least is how I foresee events.
Two hours elapse, exhausting my patience. I make arrangements with my
household. Three of us will relieve one another in turn, keeping an
uninterrupted watch on the obstinate creature, whose secret I must have
at all costs.
I was well-advised to call in helpers to lend me their eyes and their
attention. After eight hours, eight endless hours, the sentry on the
watch summons me. The insect appears to have finished. It does in fact
step back, it withdraws its drill, carefully, lest it should bend it.
The tool is now outside, once more pointing forwards, in a straight
line.
This is the moment.... Alas, no! Once again I am cheated: my eight
hours’ watch has led to nothing. The Weevil decamps, abandons the acorn
without making use of her boring. Yes, I was certainly right to
distrust observation in the woods. Such a period of waiting among the
ilexes, under the scorching sun, would have been an unbearable torture.
All through October, with the aid of helpers when needful, I remark
numerous borings not followed by any laying. The operation varies
greatly in length. Generally it lasts a couple of hours; sometimes it
takes half the day or even more.
What is the object of these shafts, made at such cost of time and
labour and very often left unstocked? Let us first look for the site
occupied by the egg and forming the grub’s earliest mouthfuls; then
perhaps the reply will come.
The inhabited acorns remain on the oak, encased in their cups as though
nothing abnormal were happening to injure the seed-lobes. They are
easily recognized with a little attention. Not far from the cup, on the
smooth and still green shells, a little speck shows, just like the
prick of a fine needle. Soon it is surrounded by a narrow brown ring,
the result of mortification. This is the mouth of the hole. At other
times, but less often, the opening is made through the cup itself.
We will take the acorns recently perforated, that is to say, those with
a pale puncture, not yet surrounded by the brown ring which will appear
in time. Shell them. Several contain no foreign matter: the Weevil has
bored them without laying her eggs in them. These represent the acorns
worked for hours and hours in my cages and not afterwards used. Many
contain an egg.
Now, however far above the cup the entrance to the pit may be, this egg
is always right at the bottom, at the base of the seed-lobes. There is
here, provided by the cup, a soft, blanket-like layer which imbibes the
sapid exudations from the tip of the peduncle, the source of
nourishment. I see a young grub, hatched before my eyes, nibble as its
first mouthfuls this tender woolly mass, this moist cake flavoured with
tannin.
This dainty, juicy and easy of digestion, like all nascent organic
matter, is found only at this particular spot; and it is solely here,
between the cup and the base of the seed-lobes, that the Weevil lodges
her egg. The insect knows to a nicety the position of the morsels
best-suited to the feeble stomach of the new-born larva.
Above this is the comparatively coarse bread of the seed-lobes.
Refreshed by its first meal at the drinking-bar, the grub enters it,
not directly, but through the tunnel opened by the mother’s probe, a
tunnel littered with crumbs, with half-masticated fragments. This light
farinaceous food, prepared in a column of appropriate height, gives
strength; and the grub next penetrates right into the firm substance of
the acorn.
These facts explain the egg-layer’s tactics. What is her object when,
before proceeding to bore the hole, she inspects her acorn, above,
below, in front and behind, with fastidious care? She is making sure
that the fruit is not already occupied. It is a rich larder, certainly;
nevertheless, there is not enough for two. Never indeed have I found
two larvæ in the same acorn. One only, always one only, digests the
generous morsel and converts it into pale-green flour before leaving it
and descending to the ground. Of the seed-lobe bread, at most an
insignificant crumb remains. The rule is that each grub has its loaf,
each consumer its ration consisting of one acorn.
Before trusting the egg to the acorn, therefore, it is important to
examine it, to ascertain if it already has an occupant. Now this
occupant, if any, is at the bottom of a crypt, at the base of the
acorn, under the cover of a cup bristling with scales. Nothing could be
more secret than this hiding-place. No eye would suspect the presence
of a recluse if the surface of the acorn did not bear the mark of a
tiny puncture.
This just visible mark is my guide. Its appearance tells me that the
fruit is inhabited or that it has at least been prepared for the
reception of the egg; its absence assures me that the acorn has not
been appropriated. The Weevil, beyond a doubt, obtains her information
in the same manner.
I see things from a height, with a comprehensive glance, assisted if
need be by the magnifying-glass. I turn the object for a moment in my
fingers; and my inspection is over. The Weevil, investigating at close
quarters, is obliged to point her microscope more or less everywhere
before detecting the tell-tale speck with certainty. Moreover, the
welfare of her family compels her to make a far more scrupulous search
than that prompted by my curiosity. This is why her examination of the
acorn is so excessively protracted.
It is done: the acorn is accepted as a good one. The drill is driven in
and kept working for hours; then, very often, the insect goes away,
despising her work. The laying of the egg does not follow on the
boring. What is the object of so great and so long an effort? Can the
Weevil simply be piercing the fruit to satisfy her appetite and obtain
refreshment? Can the reed-like beak go down to the depths of the barrel
to draw, from the likeliest spots, a few mouthfuls of sustaining drink?
Can the enterprise be a matter of personal nourishment?
I thought so at first, though I was a little surprised at this display
of perseverance in view of a sip. The males taught me to abandon the
idea. They too possess a long rostrum, capable of opening a well if
necessary; nevertheless I never see one standing on an acorn and
working at it with his drill. Why take so much trouble? A mere nothing
satisfies these frugal eaters. A superficial digging with the tip of
the proboscis into the tender leaf yields enough to maintain their
strength.
If they, the idlers who have leisure to enjoy the delights of the
table, want no more, how will it be with the mothers, busy with the
laying? Have they the time to eat and drink? No, the pierced acorn is
not a bar at which to lounge, sipping without end. That the beak, when
driven into the fruit, levies a small mouthful is possible; but this
scrap is certainly not the object in view.
I seem to catch a glimpse of the real object. The egg, as we said, is
always at the base of the acorn, in the midst of a sort of wadding
moistened by the sap that oozes from the stalk. At the hatching, the
grub, incapable as yet of tackling the firm substance of the
seed-lobes, chews the delicate felt at the bottom of the cup and feeds
upon its juices.
But, as the fruit matures, this cake becomes more solid and changes in
flavour and in the consistency of its pulp. What was soft hardens, what
was moist dries up. There is a period during which the conditions
necessary to the new-born grub’s welfare are fulfilled to perfection.
At an earlier stage, things would not have reached the requisite degree
of preparation; later, they would be too ripe.
Outside, on the green rind of the acorn, there is nothing to show the
progress of this inner cooking. In order not to serve her grub with
noxious food, the mother, inadequately informed by the sight of the
acorn, is therefore obliged first to taste with the tip of her
proboscis what lies at the bottom of the store-room.
The nurse, before giving baby his spoonful of pap, puts her lips to it
to try it. The mother Weevil in the same way, with no less affection,
dips her probe to the bottom of the basin, to try its contents before
bequeathing them to her son. If the food is considered satisfactory,
the egg is laid; if not, the boring is abandoned without more ado. This
explains the perforations of which no advantage is taken after much
laborious work. The soft bread at the bottom, carefully tested, was not
found to be in the required condition. How particular, how fastidious
are these Weevils, where the first mouthful of the family is concerned!
To place the egg in a spot where the new-born grub will find light,
juicy, easily-digested food is not enough for these far-seeing mothers.
Their care goes farther. An intermediate diet would be useful, to lead
the little larva from the dainty fare of the first hours to the regimen
of hard bread. This intermediate diet is in the gallery, the work of
the mother’s beak. Here are crumbs, particles bitten off by the shears
of the proboscis. Moreover, the sides of the tunnel, softened by
mortification, are better-suited than the rest to the feeble mandibles
of the novice.
Before nibbling at the seed-lobes, the grub does in fact embark upon
this tunnel. It feeds on the meal found along the road; it gathers the
discoloured atoms hanging from the walls; and lastly, when strong
enough, it attacks the loaf of the kernel, digs into it and disappears
inside. The stomach is ready. The rest is a blissful feast.
This tubular nursery must be of a certain length to satisfy the needs
of infancy; and so the mother works her drill accordingly. If the
thrust of the probe were intended solely for sampling the material at
the base of the acorn and examining its degree of maturity, the
operation would be much shorter, since it could be started near that
base, through the cup. This advantage is not unrecognized: I have
happened to surprise the insect working upon the scaly cupule.
I see in this merely an attempt of the hurried mother to obtain
information. If the acorn suits, the boring will be made over again,
higher up, outside the cup. When the egg is to be laid, the rule, in
fact, is to bore through the acorn itself, as high up as the length of
the tool permits.
What is the object of this long boring, which is not always finished in
half a day? What is the use of this stubborn perseverance when, near
the stalk, at the cost of much less time and labour, the bradawl would
reach the desired point, the running spring whereat the nascent grub is
to slake its thirst? The mother has her reasons for going to all this
trouble: by so doing she reaches the regular spot, the base of the
acorn, and by this very action—a most valuable result—prepares a long
tube of meal for her son.
These are all trivialities! Not so, if you please: matters of great
importance rather, telling us of the infinite cares that preside over
the preservation of the least of things and bearing witness to a higher
logic which regulates the smallest details.
The Weevil, so happily inspired as a breeder, has her place in the
world and is worthy of consideration. So at least thinks the Blackbird,
who gladly makes a meal of the long-beaked insect when the berries
begin to run short at the end of autumn. It is a small mouthful but a
tasty one; and it makes a pleasant change after the bitterness of the
olive that still resists the cold.
And what were the reawakening of the woods in spring, without the
Blackbird and his rivals! Were man to disappear, annihilated by his own
follies, the springtide festival would be no less solemnly celebrated
by the Blackbird’s triumphant fluting.
To the most deserving part played in feasting the bird, the minstrel of
the forests, the Weevil adds another, that of moderating the amount of
vegetable lumber. Like all the mighty really worthy of their power, the
oak is generous: it yields acorns by the bushel. What could the earth
do with this abundance? The forest itself would be stifled for lack of
space; excess would ruin the essential.
But, as soon as victuals are plentiful, there comes from every side a
rush of consumers only too eager to reduce the headlong production. The
Field-mouse, a native, hoards acorns in a stone-heap, near her hay
mattress. A stranger, the Jay, arrives from a distance, in flocks,
apprised I know not how. For some weeks he flies feasting from oak to
oak, giving vent to his joys and his emotions by screeching like a
strangled Cat; then, having fulfilled his mission, he goes back to the
north whence he came.
The Weevil has been beforehand with them all. She confided her eggs to
the acorns while these were still green. They are now lying on the
ground, brown before their time and pierced with a round hole through
which the larva has escaped after consuming the contents. It would be
easy under a single oak to fill a basket with these empty ruins. The
Weevil has done more than the Jay and more than the Field-mouse to get
rid of the superfluity.
Soon man arrives, thinking of his pigs. In my village it is a great
event when the public crier announces the opening day for gathering
acorns in the common woods. The more zealous inspect the ground on the
eve, in order to select a good place. Next morning, at peep of day, the
whole family is there. The father beats the higher branches with a
pole; the mother, wearing a large canvas apron which allows her to
force her way through the thickets, gathers from the tree all that her
hand can reach; the children pick up what lies on the ground. And the
baskets are filled, followed by the hampers and the sacks.
After the glee of the Field-mouse, the Jay, the Weevil and so many
others, here comes that of man, calculating how much bacon his harvest
will bring him. One regret mingles with the rejoicings, that is to see
so many acorns scattered on the ground, pierced, spoilt, good for
nothing. Man inveighs against the author of the damage. To listen to
him, you would think that the forest were his alone and that the oaks
bore fruit only for his Pig.
‘My friend,’ I would say to him, ‘the forest-ranger can’t summon the
delinquent and this is just as well, for our self-seeking, which is
inclined to look upon the acorn-crop only in the light of a string of
sausages, would lead to tiresome results. The oak invites the whole
world to enjoy its fruits. We take the biggest share, because we are
the strongest. That is only our right.... But what ranks ever so much
higher is a fair division among the various consumers, great and small,
all of whom play their part in this world. If it is well that the
Blackbird should whistle and gladden the burgeoning of the spring, then
let us not take it ill that the acorns are rotten. For here the
Blackbird’s dessert is prepared, the Weevil, a dainty mouthful that
lends fat to his rump and music to his throat.’
Let us leave the Blackbird to sing and hark back to the Weevil’s egg.
We know where it is: at the base of the acorn, in the tenderest and
juiciest part of the fruit. How did it get there, so far from the
entrance, which is situated above the edge of the cup. A very small
question, it is true, even puerile, if you will. Let us not despise it:
science is built up of puerilities.
The first man to rub a piece of amber on his sleeve and thereupon to
discover that the piece aforesaid attracted bits of straw certainly did
not suspect the electric wonders of our day. He was amusing himself in
his artless fashion. When repeated and tested in every conceivable
manner, this child’s plaything became one of the forces of the world.
The observer must neglect nothing: he never knows what the humblest
fact may bring forth. I therefore repeat the question: by what means
was the Weevil’s egg placed so far from the entrance?
To any one who was not yet aware of the position of the egg, but who
knew that the grub attacks the base of the acorn first, the reply would
appear to be as follows: the egg is laid at the entrance of the tunnel,
on the surface; and the grub, crawling along the gallery dug by the
mother, of its own accord reaches the point where its infant’s-food
exists.
At first, before I possessed adequate particulars, this explanation was
also my own; but the mistake was soon dispelled. I pluck the acorn when
the mother withdraws after for an instant applying the tip of her
abdomen to the orifice of the tunnel which her rostrum has just bored.
The egg, so it seems, must be there, at the entrance, close to the
surface.... But not at all: it is not there; it is at the other end of
the passage! If I dared to take the liberty, I should say that it has
gone down it as a stone falls to the bottom of a well.
We must hasten to abandon this silly notion: the tunnel is infinitely
narrow and blocked with shavings, so that any such descent would be
impossible. Besides, according to the direction of the stalk, which may
be either downwards or upwards, a fall in one acorn would mean an
ascent in another.
A second, no less risky explanation suggests itself. You say to
yourself:
‘The Cuckoo lays her egg in the grass, anywhere; she picks it up in her
beak and goes and places it as it is in the Warbler’s narrow nest.’
Can the Weevil adopt a similar method? Can she use her rostrum to push
her egg to the base of the acorn? I cannot see that the insect has any
other implement capable of reaching this remote hiding-place.
And yet we must hastily reject this quaint explanation as a despairing
resource. Never does the Weevil lay her egg in the open and then take
it in her beak. If she did, the delicate germ would infallibly perish,
destroyed in the attempt to push it down a narrow, half-choked passage.
My perplexity is great; and it will be shared by any of my readers who
are acquainted with the Weevil’s structure. The Grasshopper owns a
sabre, a laying-tool which sinks into the ground and sows the eggs at
the requisite depth; [39] the Leucospis is endowed with a probe which
makes its way through the Chalicodoma’s [40] masonry and slips the egg
into the cocoon of the fat, sleepy larva; but this Weevil of ours has
none of these rapiers, daggers or larding-pins; she has nothing at the
tip of her abdomen, absolutely nothing. And yet she has but to apply
that tip to the narrow opening of the well for the egg to be lodged,
forthwith, at the very bottom.
Anatomy will supply the key to the riddle, which is otherwise
undecipherable. I open the mother’s abdomen. What meets my eyes
astounds me. There is here, occupying the whole length of the body, an
extraordinary piece of mechanism, a stiff, red, horny rod, I was almost
saying a rostrum, so closely does it resemble that of the head. It is a
tube, slender as a horse-hair, widening slightly like a blunderbuss at
the free end and swollen like an egg-shaped capsule at the base.
This is the laying-tool, equalling the bradawl in length. As far as the
perforating beak reaches, so far can the egg-probe reach, that inner
beak. When working upon her acorn, the Weevil chooses the point of
attack so that the two complementary instruments can both reach the
desired point, the base of the fruit.
The rest now stands self-explained. When the work of drilling is
finished and the gallery ready, the mother turns round and places the
tip of her abdomen over the entrance. She unsheathes and protrudes her
internal mechanism, which readily sinks through the loose shavings. No
sign appears of the directing probe, so quickly and discreetly does it
work; no sign appears either when, after the egg has been placed in
position, the instrument goes up again and gradually slips back into
the abdomen. It is over; the mother departs and we have seen none of
her little secrets.
Was I not right to persist? An apparently insignificant fact has told
me definitely what the Larini had already led me to suspect. The
long-beaked Weevils have an inner probe, an abdominal rostrum, which no
outward sign betrays; they possess, hidden away in their belly, the
counterpart of the Grasshopper’s sabre and of the Ichneumon-fly’s
larding-pin.