MAN'S DEVOTION 109 



as situated within their places of concealment and 

 without. If without, then the females would have 

 to leave their asylums, and, during the long search 

 for food and while consuming it, expose themselves 

 to the assaults of their enemies and competitors; 

 therefore, the benefits of concealment would be lost, 

 the pregnant females would perish, and the race 

 could not survive. 



If within, then there are again but two contin- 

 gencies. Either the food supplies must exist 

 naturally within their retreats or they must be 

 brought there artificially. Firstly, considering the 

 possibility of hiding in localities where supplies of 

 food existed naturally. Such places quickly be- 

 come the most frequented haunts for creatures of 

 various types, and therefore utterly unfit for con- 

 cealment. For this very reason they also become 

 the favorite hunting grounds of carnivora, therefore 

 totally unsafe as abodes for the helpless and inca- 

 pacitated. All other possibilities by which the 

 pregnant human females might have obtained their 

 food being exhausted, the only possible conclusion 

 is that it must have been brought artificially within 

 their hiding places. The alternative of food being 

 carried within their asylums by the females them- 

 selves need not be considered, for this could obvi- 

 ously not be done unless they went in search of it 

 outside their retreats, which has been disposed of 

 above. 



If it be said, the females may, in anticipation 



