produces a surplus of nutrition to
be used in reproduction. Organically reproduction is also a function
of nutrition, and, as Spencer pointed out, is to be regarded as
discontinuous growth. The fact than an anabolic surplus, preparatory
to the katabolic process of reproduction, is stored at an earlier
period in the female than in the male, and that this period is
retarded in the ill-nourished female, is a confirmation of the view
that femaleness is an expression of the tendency to store nutriment,
and explains also the infantile somatic characters of woman. Finally,
the fact that polyandry is found almost exclusively in poor countries,
coupled with the fact that ethnologists uniformly report a scarcity
of women in those countries, permits us to attribute polyandry to a
scarcity of women and scarcity of women to poor food conditions.

This evidence should be considered in connection with the experiments
of Yung on tadpoles, of Siebold on wasps, and of Klebs on the
modification of male and female organs in plants:

According to Yung, tadpoles pass through an hermaphroditic
stage, in common, according to other authorities, with most
animals.... When the tadpoles were left to themselves,
the females were rather in the majority. In three lots the
proportion of females to males was: 54-46, 61-39, 56-44. The
average number of females was thus about fifty-seven in the
hundred. In the first brood, by feeding one set with beef,
Yung raised the percentage of females from 54 to 78: in the
second, with fish, the percentage rose from 61 to 81; while in
the third set, when the especially nutritious flesh of frogs
was supplied, the percentage rose from 56 to 92. That is to
say, in the last case the result of high feeding was that
there were 92 females and 8 males.[11]

Similarly, the experiments of Siebold on wasps show that the
percentage of females increases from spring to August, and
then diminishes. We may conclude without scruple that the
production of females from fertilized ova increases with
the temperature and food supply, and decreases as these
diminish.[12]

Nor are there many facts more significant than the simple and
well-known one that within the first eight days of larval
life the addition of food will determine the striking and
functional differences between worker and queen.[13]

It is certainly no mere chance, but a