HISTORY OF PARTHENOGENESIS. 307 



however, we will confine onrselves to the points estab- 

 lished in his work bearing on onr subject. 



Having isolated female moths, he constantly watched 

 them in Httle vessels closed with glass lids. In due time 

 they laid eggs. There was nothing surprising in this ; 

 the virgin moth, as well as the female of every other 

 insect — indeed of every other animal — lays eggs ; but 

 what was his astonishment, " when all the eo-crs of these 

 females, of whose virgin state I was most positively con- 

 vinced, gave birth to young caterpillars, which looked 

 about with the greatest avidity in search of materials ! " 

 Imagine a brood of chickens hatched from the eggs of 

 a virgin hen, and you will conceive Siebold's surprise. 

 He subsequently found that bees, in like manner, 

 produce hundreds of eggs, which, however, invariably 

 become 'inale bees ; for it is only the fertiKsed bee-egg 

 which will develop into a female — either worker, or 

 queen. 



Uugallant physiologists, resting on the evidence of 

 some embryological phenomena, have declared the fe- 

 male to be only a male in arrested development; a very 

 impertinent deduction, which was, however, flung back 

 on them by a witty friend of mine, who, hearing that 

 one of her own sex was fond erf reading metaphysics, 

 and was feared to be suffering from a softened brain, 

 drew her own conclusion as to this masculine course of 

 study, exclaiming, " Alan is hut ivonian luith a softened 

 hrain!'' She would have also retorted Von Siebold's 

 facts about the bees, which point at a miserable infe- 

 riority on the part of the males. But I must not let her 



