It has learned that this stony soil, rebellious to the culture of the kitchen-gardener, is bearing peas for the first time.

In all haste therefore it has hurried, an agent of the entomological revenue system, to demand its dues.
Whence does it come?
It is impossible to say precisely.

It has come from some shelter, somewhere, in which it has passed the winter in a state of torpor.

The plane-tree, which sheds its rind during the heats of the summer, furnishes an excellent refuge for homeless insects under its partly detached sheets of bark.
I have often found our weevil in such a winter refuge.

Sheltered under the dead covering of the plane, or otherwise protected while the winter lasts, it awakens from its torpor at the first touch of a kindly sun.
The almanack of the instincts has aroused it; it knows as well as the gardener when the pea-vines are in flower, and seeks its favourite plant, journeying thither from every side, running with quick, short steps, or nimbly flying.
A small head, a fine snout, a costume of ashen grey sprinkled with brown, flattened wing-covers, a dumpy, compact body, with two large black dots on the rear segment--such is the summary portrait of my visitor.