It first consumes the shavings lying loose in the passage; it devours the brown fragments adhering to the walls; finally, being now sufficiently strengthened, it attacks the body of the acorn, plunges into it, and disappears.

The stomach is ready; the rest is a blissful feast.
This intermediary tunnel must be of a certain length, in order to satisfy the needs of infancy, so the mother must labour at the work of drilling.

If the perforation were made solely with the purpose of tasting the material at the base of the acorn and recognising its degree of maturity, the operation might be very much shorter, since the hole could be sunk through the cup itself from a point close to the base.
This fact is not unrecognised; I have on occasion found the insect perforating the scaly cup.
In such a proceeding I see the attempt of a gravid mother pressed for time to obtain prompt information.

If the acorn is suitable the boring will be recommenced at a more distant point, through the surface of the acorn itself.

When an egg is to be laid the rule is to bore the hole from a point as distant as is practicable from the base--as far, in short, as the length of the rostrum will permit.
What is the object of this long perforation, which often occupies more than half the day?
Why this tenacious perseverance when, not far from the stalk, at the cost of much less time and fatigue, the rostrum could attain the desired point--the living spring from which the new-born grub is to drink?
The mother has her own reasons for toiling in this manner; in doing thus she still attains the necessary point, the base of the acorn, and at the same time--a most valuable result--she prepares for the grub a long tube of fine, easily digested meal.
But these are trivialities! Not so, if you please, but high and important matters, speaking to us of the infinite pains which preside over the preservation of the least of things; witnesses of a superior logic which regulates the smallest details.
The Balaninus, so happily inspired as a mother, has her place in the world and is worthy of notice.