CHAPTER III 



THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE SEXES 



DOES the insect know beforehand the sex 

 of the egg which it is about to lay? 

 When examining the stock of food in the 

 cells just now, we began to suspect that 

 it does, for each little heap of provisions is 

 carefully proportioned to the needs at one 

 time of a male and at another of a female. 

 What we have to do is to turn this suspicion 

 into a certainty demonstrated by experiment. 

 And first let us find out how the sexes are ar- 

 ranged. 



It is not possible to ascertain the chronolo- 

 gical order of a. laying, except by going to 

 suitably-chosen species. Digging up the bur- 

 rows of Cerceris-, Bembex- or Philanthus- 

 wasps will never tell us that this grub has 

 taken precedence of that in point of time nor 

 enable us to decide whether one cocoon in a 

 colony belongs to the same family as another. 

 To compile a register of births is absolutely 

 impossible here. Fortunately there are a few 



89 



