The Life of the Weevil 



visitors and more. With a seed of this size, 

 the startling disproportion between the 

 number of the insect's eggs and the foodstuffs 

 available disappears. 



Besides, there is not a doubt that, of our 

 various culinary acquisitions, the broad bean 

 is the earliest in date. Its exceptional 

 dimensions and its pleasant flavour have 

 certainly attracted man's attention since the 

 most remote times. It is a ready-made 

 mouthful, of great value to the hungry tribe, 

 which would have hastened to secure its 

 increase by sowing it in the patch of garden 

 beside the house, a hut of wattled branches 

 plastered with mud. This was the begin- 

 ing of agriculture. 



Travelling by long stages, with their wag- 

 gons drawn by shaggy Oxen and rolling on 

 solid wheels cut out of the trunks of trees, 

 the emigrants from Central Asia brought to 

 our uncultivated tracts first the bean, then the 

 pea and finally the cereal, that eminent 

 stand-by against hunger. They taught us 

 the care of herds and the use of bronze, of 

 which the first metal implements were made. 

 Thus did the dawn of civilization rise over 

 Europe. 



252 



