A stranger, the jay, comes in flocks from far away, warned I know not how.

For some weeks it flies feasting from oak to oak, giving vent to its joys and its emotions in a voice like that of a strangling cat; then, its mission accomplished, it returns to the North whence it came.
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.