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 
