272 SOCIAL LIFE IN THE INSECT WORLD 



stuff easily obtained evokes a large batch of eggs. But 

 the case of the pea perplexes me. By what aberration 

 does the mother abandon her children to starvation on 

 this totally insufficient vegetable ? Why so many grubs 

 to each pea when one pea is sufficient only for one 

 grub ? 



Matters are not so arranged in the general balance- 

 sheet of life. A certain foresight seems to rule over the 

 ovary so that the number of mouths is in proportion to 

 the abundance or scarcity of the food consumed. The 

 Scarabaeus, the Sphex, the Necrophorus, and other 

 insects which prepare and preserve alimentary provision 

 for their families, are all of a narrowly limited fertility, 

 because the balls of dung, the dead or paralysed insects, 

 or the buried corpses of animals on which their offspring 

 are nourished are provided only at the cost of laborious 

 efforts. 



The ordinary bluebottle, on the contrary, which lays 

 her eggs upon butcher's meat or carrion, lays them in 

 enormous batches. Trusting in the inexhaustible riches 

 represented by the corpse, she is prodigal of offspring, 

 and takes no account of numbers. In other cases the 

 provision is acquired by audacious brigandage, which 

 exposes the newly born offspring to a thousand mortal 

 accidents. In such cases the mother balances the 

 chances of destruction by an exaggerated flux of eggs. 

 Such is the case with the Meloides, which, stealing the 

 goods of others under conditions of the greatest peril, 

 are accordingly endowed with a prodigious fertility. 



The Bruchus knows neither the fatigues of the 

 laborious, obliged to limit the size of her family, nor 

 the misfortunes of the parasite, obliged to produce an 



