PARTHENOGENESIS. 67 



duce male or female larvae according to the sort of cells in which they are 

 laid. By a delicate and difficult microscopical examination Siebold has 

 proved that the eggs laid in the queens' and workers' cells have been pene- 

 trated by one or more Zoosperms, which, on the other hand, are never found 

 in the eggs deposited in drone cells. He concludes, with reason, that the 

 access of the impregnating fluid contained in the receptacle is cut off at 

 pleasure by an instinctive act of the female in oviposition. The worker- 

 bees, or females with undeveloped organs of generation, being incapable of 

 impregnation, in the rare cases in which their ovaries are sufficiently deve- 

 loped to mature a few eggs, these produce only male brood. 



We have not space to do more than allude to various other interesting 

 topics which Siebold has linked to these inquiries ; the improved bee- 

 hives of Dzierzon, which allow every single comb to be removed at plea- 

 sure, inspected, and replaced ; the advantages arising from the introduction 

 into Germany of the Italian variety of the honey-bee, Apis ligustica, 

 and the results of the intermixture of the two races, as bearing on the 

 immediate subject of the essay ; as also the curious spiral cases of some 

 Lepidopterous and Neuropterous larvse represented in the plate, certain of 

 which have figured as shells in some recent treatises on Mollusca; the 

 illusory likeness being heightened, in this instance, by a sort of operculum, 

 with which the inmate, a Phryganidan, (Helicopsyche Siebold,) closes the 

 aperture of its case, before entering on its state of repose as a pupa. 



The translation by Mr. Dallas acquires additional value from the notes 

 by Professor Owen inserted in it, especially those which recall attention to 

 the instances in which that truly wonderful man, John Hunter, has again 

 anticipated the discoveries of modern Physiologists in their own special 

 branches of research. The translation is made with great care and scru- 

 pulous fidelity. A sentence or two only have been omitted, which were 

 unnecessary in the context, or seemed out of place. In a very few 

 instances we think there is an alteration slightly affecting the sense. 

 Thus, for example, page 12 — Bombyces for Sjnders ; page 16 — Scheven 

 does not mean that the specimen he had is figured by Roesel, but has cited 

 the figure merely to determine the species ; page 17 — the prolixity of 

 Scheven is by no means commended, as the translation conveys ; page 21 

 — the import and value of Blancard and Audebert's observations is very 

 differently characterised in the original ; page 24 — it is not by means of the 

 laying-tube, which has a different office attributed to it, but by the feet, 

 that the female Fumea clings to the sac, as expressly stated in the original 

 concerning this and Solenobia a little further on, but omitted in the English, 



