292 TUE entomologist's kecord. 



different varieties exj^erimentecl on, the form with five or six successive 

 generations i)er year was mnch more reproductive parthenogenetically, 

 than that with a single generation. 



One of the most interesting of tlie early essays on this subject 

 is, that by Von Siebold, whicli was translated Ijy Dallas, the translation 

 being entitled, " Ou a true parthf aogenems in. moths and bees." Siebold 

 was led into his en(|uiries by some obsei'vations made on the reproduc- 

 tion of a species of moth belonging to the genus Fsiiche which, as he 

 noticed, propagated without copulation. Following this up by obser- 

 vations on bees and the silkworm moth, he found that the phenomenon 

 of reproduction by virgin females was not at all uncommon, and adopted 

 the term " parthenogenesis " (originally suggested by Professor Owen), 

 for this peculiarity. Owen, however, had originally used the term " par- 

 thenogenesis " for what we now know as " alternation of generations" 

 a vastly different phenomenon. 



According to Siebold, the oldest communication relative to repro- 

 duction by female insects, sine concuhitu, was made by a surgeon, J. P. 

 Al])recht of Hildersheim, Avho in the year 1701, relates, in a memoir, 

 that he took a brown pupa which had spun itself up on a black-currant 

 bush, and preserved it under a glass in his summer-house, to see what 

 moth would be evolved from it. At the end of July, a moth of yellow- 

 ish-white colour escaped from it (supposed to be a Bombyx or Noctua), 

 which in a few days laid a great number of eggs and then died. In April 

 of the followiiig year, Albrecht again looked at the glass, and was aston- 

 ished to find young black caterpillars in it instead of the eggs. One may 

 fairly suppose from the surprise of Albrecht, and the communication he 

 made to the Ijcopoldine Academy of Naturalists, that he was satisfied 

 that copulation had not taken place. Pernoulli, in 1772, recorded that 

 ISasler had olitained fertile eggs from an isolated female of Gaslropacha 

 qiicrcifolia which had been l)red from a cater}»illar, and further, that a 

 caterpillar of Episema {Diloha) caertdeocepluila, haA'ing changed to a 

 pupa, the pupa was left in a closed box without farther attention, and 

 that, about fifteen daj's after, he was surprised on opening the box to 

 find, besides the enclosed moth, a family of young caterpillars " which 

 had already devoured the pupa-case of their mother, and a })ortion of 

 their own egg-shells." Denis and Schiffermiiller, the well-known 

 Viennese entomologists, pointed out in 1776 (Si/st. Verz. der Schviett. 

 (In- Wiener Gegend, &c., p. 293), the possibility that these cases were 

 simply eiTors of observation, whilst Von Scheven declared that fourteen 

 days, from caterpillar through all the phases of pupa, moth, eggs and 

 dead larva', was hardly a reasonable period, and that the larvae were 

 probably from eggs laid by another fenuile moth, i)reviously confined 

 in the same box. 



Siebold, lieing very dissatisfied with what was known about the sub- 

 ject at this time, turned his attention to the " case-bearers " — Solenohia 

 licheneJla and S. triqnetreUa, and during the years 1850, '51 and '52 (the 

 time it may be observed when Mons. Jox;rdan was conducting his ex- 

 periments on the silkworm moths), he collected several hundred cases. 

 To his great astonishment none but females emerged from these cases, 

 and they commenced almost immediately to lay eggs. They " possessed 

 such a violent impulse to lay their eggs, that when I removed them 

 from their cases .... they let their eggs fall openly. If I had wondered 

 at the zeal for oviposition in these hiisbandless Sulc nubia, how was I 



