QG REVIEWS. 



females, but the last brood consisted entirely of males. We are led at 

 once to connect this observation with the normal mode of generation of 

 the drones of the hive bee. But that which appears as exceptional in the 

 history of some other Lepidoptera meets us as a regular provision of na- 

 ture in the economy of various sac-bearers of the families Psychidae and 

 Tineidse. Here the generations of wingless females succeed each other, 

 without access or production of the winged male except at distant periods. 

 How far these periods are subject to rule we have no satisfactory evidence, 

 or that there is any decline of the vitalizing energy of the female organiza- 

 tion in the course of generations. In the Psyche helix, as observed by 

 Siebold, the females alone have occurred during seven successive years, 

 and the male insect does not appear to be known with any certainty, if 

 that sex exist in nature. For here we may be approaching to the most 

 complete exemplification of Parthenogenesis, exhibited in the case of cer- 

 tain groups of insects, where the species is constituted, solely and at all 

 periods, by females producing perfect eggs, and undistinguished, as it seems, 

 by any visible peculiarity either of redundancy or defect in the reproduc- 

 tive organs. This is the case in all the true Gall-flies, — the genus Cynips 

 as restricted in recent times, — and a few more (Biorrhiza, &c), while the 

 rest of that family, and even genera approaching the gall-flies so closely in 

 structure and economy as the genus Teras for example, present both sexes, 

 and the males usually even in the greater numbers. This perfect type of 

 Parthenogenesis is, probably, not limited to the class of Insects, as there 

 is evidence of its prevalence in certain Entomostraca, at least. 



No form of Parthenogenesis, however, seems more remarkable or in- 

 structive than that which is present in connection with the economy of 

 the common honey-bee. Many strange mistakes have prevailed from early 

 times as to the history of the perfect societies of these insects, ruled by 

 laws of instinct which have stimulated the curiosity of man, as much as 

 their productive industry has served his uses and attracted his observation. 

 But it has been only at a comparatively recent period that the true charac- 

 ters of the sexes have been anatomically fixed ; and these discoveries have 

 not yet succeeded in dispelling, among the practical bee-keepers in general, 

 either inveterate errors or wild conjectures. Yet it is to one of this class, 

 Dzierzon, pastor of Caiismarkt, in Silesia, that science ultimately owes the 

 discovery of the true physiological relations which rule the generation of 

 the race. The main facts are these : — the Queen bee, or perfect female, 

 before impregnation lays eggs which produce Males only. After impregna- 

 tion, which takes place but once in the course of her life time, the eggs pro- 



