THE PEA- WEEVIL 273 



exaggerated number of offspring. Without painful 

 search, entirely at her ease, merely moving in the sun- 

 shine over her favourite plant, she can ensure a sufficient 

 provision for each of her offspring ; she can do so, yet 

 is foolish enough to over-populate the pod of the pea ; 

 a nursery insufficiently provided, in which the great 

 majority will perish of starvation. This ineptitude is 

 a thing I cannot understand : it clashes too completely 

 with the habitual foresight of the maternal instinct. 



I am inclined to believe that the pea is not the original 

 food plant of the Bruchus. The original plant must 

 rather have been the bean, one seed of which is capable 

 of supporting half a dozen or more larvae. With the 

 larger cotyledon the crying disproportion between the 

 number of eggs and the available provision disappears. 



Moreover, it is indubitable that the bean is of earlier 

 date than the pea. Its exceptional size and its agreeable 

 flavour would certainly have attracted the attention of 

 man from the remotest periods. The bean is a ready- 

 made mouthful, and would be of the greatest value to the 

 hungry tribe. Primitive man would at an early date 

 have sown it beside his wattled hut. Coming from Cen- 

 tral Asia by long stages, their wagons drawn by shaggy 

 oxen and rolling on the circular discs cut from the 

 trunks of trees, the early immigrants would have brought 

 to our virgin land, first the bean, then the pea, and finally 

 the cereal, that best of safeguards against famine. They 

 taught us the care of herds, and the use of bronze, the 

 material of the first metal implement. Thus the dawn of 

 civilisation arose over France. With the bean did those 

 ancient teachers also involuntarily bring us the insect 

 which to-day disputes it with us ? It is doubtful ; the 



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