728 JOHN BEARD, 



Perez imported from Italy in the spring of 1877 a swarm of 

 pure Ligurian bees, in order to "italianise" three swarms of the black 

 French ones, "by substituting for their queens young females, daughters 

 of the one fertilised in and imported from Italy". 



The general results of the experiments were: 1) that all the 

 progeny of the original Italian queen were pure Ligurian forms, and 

 2) that a considerable number of the males produced by its daughters, 

 which had been fertilised by French drones, were of mixed blood. Of 

 300 of the latter half exhibited characters of the French drone to a 

 greater or less degree! 



Sanson endeavours to explain away these finds by supposing the 

 result to be due to "atavism" or "reversion" (!), but he makes no 

 attempt to show why this feature was entirely lacking in all the 

 drones produced by the original Ligurian queen. The explanation is 

 far-fetched and totally inadequate, besides transgressing the rule 

 "entia non sunt multiplicanda", but it is, perhaps interesting as ex- 

 emplifying the subterfuges, to which the human mind can resort, when 

 placed in a dilemma by a novel fact, at variance with accepted but 

 unproved dogmas. The human imagination is, indeed, boundless for 

 the invention of non-existent things : the mind is strictly hmited, when 

 the simple hard facts of Nature are offered to it for its acceptance 

 and comprehension. 



As already insisted, it is inconceivable, that with but one form 

 of functional- male gamete the sex of the egg should ever be in- 

 fluenced by fertiHsation. In the bee this influence is supposed to lead 

 to the production of females. Apply the supposition to other cases, 

 and curious results will be obtained. Thus, in Aphis, Apus, and 

 Artemia the females produce at certain periods parthenogenetically 

 young of both sexes, males and females. The eggs of these latter, 

 when fertilised by the males, give rise to females, reproducing par- 

 thenogenetically. Hence here under the assumption the logical result 

 would be, that, while fertilisation determined the production of female 

 young, in its absence the young for many generations might be 

 female, and finally — without the intervention of fertilisation — male 

 and female. Which goes to show, that, as in Daphnia according to 

 researches of Weismann, fertilisation has no influence at all upon the 

 sex of the ofl'spring. Pointing to the like result are the well-known 

 facts as to the conditions in various species of gall-flies. 



An interesting case is that of Nematus ventricosus, as described 



