Effects of Castration lu Insects 



419 



well-developed reproductive organs (40 females and 8 males), 

 as being instances ot fertility brought about by a disappearance 

 of the Protozoa through some unknown cause. Such fertile 

 soldiers and workers would be comparable to the "recovered" 

 spider crabs above described, except that there is no tendency 

 towards hermaphroditism. 



It is not altogether improbable that the high and low males 

 among the Scarabaeidae, Lucanidae and Forficulid^e are produced 



Fig 6. A, normal worker of Pheidole commutata; B and C mermithergate of same in dorsal 

 and 1 teral view. 



in some such manner as the workers and soldiers of termites. It 

 is certainly suggestive that all three of these families of insects 

 live on decomposing vegetable substances and in situations where 

 they become very readily infected with gregarines. Giard ('94a) 

 has given good reasons for supposing that the high and low males 

 of Forficula, which were made the basis of a statistical study by 

 Bateson (92), are produced by differences in the number of 

 gregarines they harbor in their alimentary tract. The French 



THK JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL ZOOLOdY, VOL. 8, NO. 4. 



