Journal of Comparative Neurology. 



together. Subsequently the pollen is kneeded into a large naass and is 

 then deposited on the stigma of the ovary in which the egg is laid. This 

 is the more remarkable since the stigma is devoid of nectar and there 

 seems to be no inducement assignable for this laborious fertilization, ex- 

 cept the distant and altruistic one of providing food for the generation to 

 come. The miser does not provide for his grandchildren more instinct- 

 ively than does the yucca moth for her progeny. 



It is curious to observe that a moth closely resembling the Pronuba, 

 but without its value to the plant is almost invariably associated. (We 

 regret that American entomology should see fit to perpetuate the word 

 " Bogus " instead of spurious in this connection.) 



"Now, when it comes to the bearing which the history of these little 

 moths has upon some of the larger questions that are now concerning 

 naturalists (for instance, the transmission of acquired characters, or the 

 origin, .davelopment, and nature of the intelligence displayed by the 

 lower animals), broad fields of interesting opinion and conclusion open 

 up before us — fields that cannot possibly be explored without trenching 

 too much upon your time. I will close, therefore, with a few summary 

 expressions of individual opinion, without attempting to elaborate the 

 reasons in detail, and with the object of eliciting further discussion, 

 which is one of the objects of the paper. My first conviction is that in- 

 sect life and development give no countenance to the Weissniann school, 

 which denies the transmission of functionally acquired characters, but 

 that, on the contrary, they furnish the strongest refutation of the views 

 urged by Weissman and his followers. The little moths of which I have 

 been speaking, and indeed the great majority of insects — all, in fact, ex- 

 cept the truly social speeies — perform their humble parts in the economy 

 of nature without teaching or example, for they are, for the most part, 

 born orphans, and without relatives having experience to communicate. 

 The progeny of each year begins its independent cycle anew. Vet every in- 

 dividual performs more or less perfectly the allotted part, as did its ances- 

 tors for generation after generation. The correct view of the matter, and one 

 which completely refutes the more common idea of the fixity of instinct, 

 is that a certain number of individuals are, in point of fact, constantly 

 departing from the lines of action and variation most useful to the sp^^cics, 

 and that these are the individuals which fail to peri):'tiiate their kind and 

 become eliminated through the general law of natural selectiL)n." 



