GENERAL NOTES 135 



worker or neuters. V*ut as the female o.siiiia are all fully 

 developed females, I he eoniparison between them an;i their 

 males is not in very great contrast with that of our 

 queens and drones. The females are hatched in cells 

 measuring nhoul one third more than those in which the 

 males ha.i'li. Fabre wonders, as we do, at what causes 

 the sex of the egg and concludes that it is entirely left 

 to the d(M'ision of lh(^ mother. ]>ut as to what deter- 

 mines hei* decision he remains ignorant, He writes . 



" Thei-e remains to be lold in what manner is made 

 this facultative determination of the sexes. I know 

 absolutely nothing about it. If 1 ever learn anything 

 u\Hn\ th's delicate (luestion, it will be due to some happy 

 circuuistance for which I must wait. Towards the end 

 of my researches, I became acquainted with a GeTmiaa 

 theory concerning the domestic honeybee and due to the 

 aj»iarist, Dzierzon. Tf 1 understood it well, according to 

 rlie iiicom])le1e documents before my eyes, the egg such as 

 it is. su]>i>lied by the ovary, already has a sex; always the 

 same; it would be originally male; it is by fecundation 

 that it would become female The males would be the 

 result of non fertilized eggs; and the females of fertilized 

 eggs. The queen bee, therefore, would lay female or male 

 eggs according to whether she did or did not fertilize 

 them, as they pass«^(l through the oviduct. 



" (Joming from (Jermany, this theory inspires me with 

 profound distj'ust. As it has been admitted, with rash 

 preci]>itation, even in classic books, T will surmount my 

 repugnance to investigate Teutonic ideas and will submit 

 it. not to the pi-oof of arguments against which a con- 

 trai-y argumentation may always arise, but to the irre- 

 versible test of facts." 



Fabre then goes on to explain that, according to the 

 Dzierzon theory, the egg passes by the spermatheca which 

 contains the seminal fluid and may not have its .sex 

 changed by the action or inaction of this fluid, becoming 

 a female or a male, the sex being thus determined, at the 

 will of the layer by a pressure upon the spermatheca. 



