CATALYSIS: THE GUIDE OF LIFE 125 



reservoirs for agents that may be of first consequence in the animal 

 economy." 



Francis B. Sumner 64 has discussed the quantitative changes in 

 pigmentation resulting from visual stimuli in fishes and amphibia. 

 We thus get an idea of how and why flat-fishes, chameleons, etc., 

 change color in response to their surroundings. This is related to 

 the seasonal color changes in the hair of some animals (e.g., 

 ermines, hares, rabbits), brought about as Bisonette and others 

 have shown, by seasonal variations in the amount of sunlight, 

 acting through variations in the amounts of pituitary hormones 

 secreted. If the animals are kept in illuminated cages, they 

 develop summer coats even in winter. 



Since the chemical units represent mainly consequences of 

 catalytic activity, it would appear that the differences described 

 probably stem back to the original cellular biocatalysts. 



In quite another field, we find remarkable evidence of chemical 

 control in bees. In full season a queen bee may lay in excess of 2,000 

 eggs daily, more than her own weight. Unfertilized eggs give rise only 

 to drones (males), but the fertilized eggs may give rise to workers (sex- 

 ually immature females) or to queens: nutritional difference decides 

 the outcome. Townsend and Lucas state: 65 



"All female larvae are fed on royal jelly for the first 2-3 days after 

 hatching and during this period their anatomical development is 

 similar. Only the queen continues to receive this special diet. Any 

 larva from a fertile egg, if given royal jelly throughout its larval 

 period, develops sexually so that it becomes a perfect or true female 

 bee, or what is called a queen; otherwise, the larva develops into a 

 sexually immature worker. The queen is structurally much the same 

 as the workers but with these important differences: the pollen-gather- 

 ing apparatus remains undeveloped, the mouth parts and sting are 

 modified, while the spermotheca and ovaries are highly developed." 



These authors separated royal jelly into four fractions and found 

 some evidence that the physiologically active material responsible for 

 the sexual development of the queen bee is in the ether-soluble frac- 

 tion. More recently Pearson and Burgin 66 report that bee royal jelly 

 is the richest known source of pantothenic acid, its 35.8 per cent dry 

 substance containing from 378 to 618 (average, 511) mg of pantothenic 

 acid per gram. 



In discussing ants, G. H. Carpenter stated: 67 



"One of the most interesting features of ant-societies is the 

 dimorphism or polymorphism that may often be seen among the 

 workers, the same species being represented by two or more forms. 



