Read it through once

Some of the most interesting objects in nature are the buds in which, all neatly packed and stowed away, the young leaves and flowers remain awaiting the warm breath of spring. They are most interesting to examine: one finds series after series of overlapping scales which cover one another in the most ingenious way. No two are exactly alike, but each seems to have been moulded exactly to the proper shape. There is no waste anywhere, no useless expenditure of material. Very often turpentine or resin or a sticky gum seals up the joining of the scales. Every possible precaution seems to have been taken by nature. Neither rain nor snow can enter a winter bud. Neither can the cold of winter penetrate to the inside where the baby leaves and flower petals are cosily and tightly coiled up. But observe in the very earliest warm days of spring an extraordinary little insect, which has wakened up after its own winter sleep in the moss or lichen covering the rough and crannied bark of an old apple tree. This is the Apple-blossom Weevil, a beetle only about quarter of an inch in length, but with a curious snout or proboscis half the length of its body. This creature proceeds to the bud, and fixing its legs firmly, proceeds to bore a hole through the scales into the middle of the bud. She then places an egg inside, and goes on to put an egg in each of fourteen to forty-nine other buds. This takes a fortnight, and then she dies, probably satisfied that her duty is fully performed. A little footless, cream-white maggot develops in the apple-bud, which latter becomes rusty-coloured and dies away.