ASEXUAL GENESIS AND OVULATION 153 



tion. For ovulation appears to be analogous with asexual 

 reproduction. In the case of parthenogenesis ovulation 

 may be said to be identical with asexual reproduction. 

 It might appear, therefore, that ovulation will be governed 

 by the same laws, and that highly favourable nutritive 

 conditions will lead to the production of a correspond- 

 ingly large number of egg cells. A number of facts can 

 be quoted in favour of this view. Thus we are told that 

 the queen bee produces from twice to four times her 

 own weight of eggs daily when in full laying activity, 1 

 and during this time she is very highly fed. Some worker 

 wasps, during the favourable conditions of autumn, when 

 food is very abundant, lay unfertilised eggs which produce 

 males. And in most cases where there is a change from 

 parthenogenesis to sexual genesis during unfavourable 

 conditions the number of fertilised eggs is considerably 

 smaller than those produced parthenogenetically. Flowers 

 seem to produce an abundance of pollen in favourable 

 seasons. These facts appear to imply that ovulation 

 must be looked upon as analogous with asexual repro- 

 duction, and that fewer egg cells will be produced under un- 

 favourable conditions, and more when conditions improve. 



But it is not wise to press analogies too far, and there 

 is another point of view. It may be plausibly argued 

 that failure of ovulation or atrophy of the ovaries, as 

 in the worker bee, is the logical development of complete 

 sterility, and that ovulation should logically be governed 

 by the same law as that which regulates the union of 

 sperm cell and ovum, since ovulation, except in the case 

 of parthenogenesis, is merely the preliminary to fertilisa- 

 tion. Various facts may be cited in favour of this view also. 



Thus we must take flowering and the production of 

 egg cells among plants to be analogous with ovulation 

 among animals. Now, under excessively high nutritive 

 1 Bees and Beekeeping, Cheshire, vol. i, chap. vi. 



