PARTHENOGENESIS IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 243 



impregiiatiou ^vas unnecessary to the production of drones. That in 

 common normal generation, where the queen returns impregnated from 

 her flight, the drones are developed from unfecundated eggs, i. e., from 

 those through whose micropyles the spermatozoa have not penetrated, is 

 lu'oved by Dzicrzon from the following' fact : After the introduction of 

 the Italian bee, {apis liguyica,) distinguished by the light color of its pos- 

 terior abdomen, all the young drones from an Italian queen and a German 

 father were trne Italians, while the female i^rogeny were clearly mixed. 



The convincing truth of these fiicts and the logical conclusions drawn 

 from them at last brought such eminent bee-masters as Pastor Georg 

 Kleine, of Liiethorst, in Hanover, and August v. Berlepsch, of Seebach, 

 uear Gotha, into Dzierzon's camp; but they found no entrance as yet 

 into zoological science, because these practical men were unable to fur- 

 nish the proper scientific proof to physiologists, who either did not know 

 or purposely ignored these phenomena. 



The important discovery of the micropyle of the insect-egg, made 

 almost simultaneously in 1854 bj-^Meissner,* of Gottingen, and Leuckart,t 

 of Giesseu, raised the hope of the apiculturists, and seemed to make it 

 l^robable that Dzierzon's views would be proved by scientific men. At 

 the thirty-first meeting of German naturalists and physicians, held at 

 Gottingen in 1854, Pastor Kleine succeeded in winning Professor 

 Leuckart for his cause just as the latter had demonstrated his beautiful 

 discoveries about the eggs of insects. Leuckart had never been able 

 to obtain any bee-eggs, and was then for the first time, according- to 

 his own confession, initiated into the mysteries and i^roblems of beedife. 



The first direct proof of the existence of real parthenogenesis was 

 furnished by Leuckart in the "Bienenzeitung," 1855, p. 127, where he 

 communicated the results of the microscopic examinatiouof a queen-bee 

 sent him by Baron Berlei)sch. This queen had been hatched in Sep- 

 tember, 1854, a time when no drones existed. The next spring- she had 

 filled fifteen hundred cells with male progeny. On dissection it became 

 evident that the queen had not been impregnated. She was a nonnally 

 formed female with seed-pouch and eggs; but instead of spermatic fila- 

 ments the former contained a perfectly clear liquid, devoid of granules 

 or cells, just as in the pupte of queens. 



In order to establish Dzierzon's view fidly it still remained to be proved 

 that in impregnated queens laying normal eggs, the males are also 

 developed from unfecundated eggs. For this purpose Baron Berlepscli 

 invited Professor Leuckart to Seebach, where he could institute micro- 

 scoi)ic investigations. Leuckart went there willingly, but he could not 

 obtain a definite result, in spite of all his long continued exertions. K. 

 Th. V. Siebold, who went to Seebach a few months later, by invitation 

 of Baron Berlepsch, and resumed Leuckart's researches, was more suc- 

 cessful. He worked in vain for three days and declared that nothing 



* Zeitschrift fiir wisseuscbaftliche, Zoologie, vi, 272. 

 t Aicliiv. fiir Anatoini(> ii. riiysiologii", li-^.").^*, p. 'JO. 



