Rationing According to Sex 



rested by a very remarkable fact, at the 

 time when our mind, refusing to be satisfied 

 with sweeping generalities, which our indo- 

 lence too readily makes shift with, seeks to 

 enter as far as possible into the secret of the 

 details, so curious and sometimes so im- 

 portant, as and when they become better- 

 known to us. This fact, which has preoccu- 

 pied me for many a long year, is the variable 

 quantity of the provisions packed into the 

 burrow as food for the larva. 



Each species is scrupulously faithful to the 

 diet of its ancestors. For more than a quar- 

 ter of a century I have been exploring my 

 district; and I have never known the diet to 

 vary. To-day, as thirty years ago, each 

 huntress must have the game which I first 

 saw her pursuing. But, though the nature 

 of the victuals is constant, the quantity is not 

 so. In this respect the difference is so great 

 that he would need to be a very superficial 

 observer who should fail to perceive it on 

 his first examination of the burrows. In 

 the beginning, this difference, involving two, 

 three, four times the quantity and more, per- 

 plexed me extremely and led me to the con- 

 clusions which I reject to-day. 



Here, among the instances most familiar 

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