Biorhiza Group. 143 



shorter, so that it is only by extruding the ovipositor 

 that the vagina of the female can become accessible to the 

 male. Now, seeing that the agamous generations have 

 retained the habit of extruding the terebra, as an invita- 

 tion to fecundation, does this not seem to indicate that, 

 at some antecedent period, males must have existed^? 



We know, besides, that among other Cynipidae, not 

 living on the oak, a solitary male is occasionally found, 

 although reproduction is carried on purely partheno- 

 genetically. I refer to the Cynipidae of the rose, Rhodites 

 rosae and Rhodites eglanteriae. In both of these there are 

 found solitary males, although it is probable that for 

 a long time coitus has ceased to take place. 



Lastly, besides those already mentioned there are still 

 two other accessory glands situated in the vagina, a little 

 nearer the origin of the ovipositor, which are easily 

 recognized by their round form and milk-white colour. 

 They contain an abundant secretion closely resembling 

 a fatty emulsion, and this secretion, I am inclined to 

 believe, has the purely mechanical purpose of anointing 

 the piercing apparatus. In the case of certain other 

 Hymenoptera {aculeata), we find, at the root of the sting, 

 an oil-gland which lubricates, with its fatty secretion, the 

 spot where the two spiculaeare jointed into the grooved 

 seta, and facilitates their to and fro movement. This 

 oil-gland is wanting in the Cynipidae ; but it is replaced 

 in them by the pair of glands just mentioned, which are 



[^ According to Lichtenstein this position so modifies the appearance 

 of the insect that Radosskoiosky, a Russian naturaHst, has made a 

 new genus ' Manderstjernia' of acynips having the ovipositor extruded 

 in this way. Bulletin Soc. Imp. des natural, de Moscow, 1866.] 



