1873.] 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



197 



bee, (apis ligurica,) distinguished by the light color 

 of its posterior abdomen, all the young drones 

 from an Italian queen and a German father were 

 true Italians, while the female progeny were clearly 

 mixed. 



The convincing truth of these facts and the logical, 

 conclusions drawn from them at last brought such I 

 eminent bee-masters as Pastor Georg Kleine, of j 

 Liiethorst, in Hanover, and August v. Berlepsch of I 

 Seebach, near Gotha, into Dzierzon's camp; but 

 they found no entrance as yet into zoological 

 science, because these practical men were unable to 

 furnish the proper scientific proof to physiologists, 

 who either did not know or purposely ignored these I 

 phenomena. 



The important discovery of the micropyle of the 

 insect-egg, made almost simultaneously in 1854 by 

 Meissner,* of Gbttingen, and Leuckart,f of Giessen, 

 raised the hope of the apiculturists, and seemed to 

 make it probable that Dzierzon's views would be 

 proved by scientific men. At the thirty-first meet- 

 ing of German naturalists and physicians, held at 

 Gbttingen in 1854, Pastor Kleine succeeded in win- 

 ning Professor Leuckart for his cause just as the 

 latter had demonstrated his beautiful discoveries 

 about the eggs of insects. Leuckart had never been 

 able to obtain any bee-eggs, and was then for the 

 first time, according to his own confession, initiated 

 into the mysteries and problems of bee-life. 



The first direct proof of the existence of real 

 parthenogenesis was furnished by Leuckart in the 

 " Bienenzeitung," 1855, p. 127, where he commu- 

 nicated the results of the microscopic examination 

 of a queen-bee sent him by Baron Berlepsch. This 

 queen had been hatched in September, 1854, a time 

 when no drones existed. The next spring she had 

 filled fifteen hundred cells with male progeny. On 

 dissection it became evident that the queen had not 

 been impregnated. She was a normally formed 

 female with seed-pouch and eggs ; but instead of 

 spermatic filaments the former contained a perfectly 

 clear liquid, devoid of granules or cells, just as in 

 the pupae of queens. 



In order to establish Dzierzon's view fully it still 

 remained to be proved that in impregnated queens 

 laying normal eggs, the males are also develeped 

 from unfecundated eggs. For this purpose Baron 

 Berlepsch invited Professor Leuckart to Seebach, 

 where he could institute microscopic investigations. 

 Leuckart went there willingly, but he could not 

 obtain a definite result, in spite of all his long con- 

 tinued exertions. K. Th. v. Siebold, who went to 

 Seebach a few months later, by invitation of Baron 

 Berlepsch, and resumed Leuckart's researches, was 

 more successful. He worked in vain for three days 

 and declared that nothing could be discovered by 

 means of the microscope. He was to return next 

 morning, and the carriage was already before the 

 door when he appeared before the baron and asked 

 permission to remain one day longer. He stated 

 that he had been unable to sleep on account of his 

 want of success, and that a new method had 

 occurred to him, which he desired to try. % This 

 method succeeded perfectly, and v. Siebold very 

 frequently saw seed-filaments (thirty-one times in 



* Zeitschrift fur wissenschaftliclie, Zoologie, vi, 272. 

 t Archiv. fur Anatomie u. Physiologie, 1855, p. 90. 

 % Bienenzeitung, 186;}, p. 222. 



fifty -two, and in two of these cases mobile) in the 

 interior of the bee-eggs. But these spermatozoa 

 were found exclusively in female eggs, and were 

 entirely wanting in the male.* We therefore owe 

 to Siebold' s wonderful observations and laborious 

 experiments the definitive establishment of Dzier- 

 zon's theory that the drone-eggs are developed 

 partkenogenetically without impregnation by the 

 male seed. This fact, abundantly confirmed by 

 many accurate and oft-repeated investigations, and 

 also by Leuckart's valuable work,f must now be 

 received as scientifically established. 



When parthenogenetical reproduction was thus 

 undoubtedly proved in bees, the above-mentioned 

 more ancient statements were carefully re-examined. 

 In the Solenobia triquetrella and the Solenobia 

 liehenella belonging to the moth family, it was found 

 that the females (which were brought up from the 

 caterpillar stage in a closed box) laid numerous 

 eggs soon after leaving the pupre, and that these 

 eggs produced small caterpillars. V. Siebold dis- 

 sected such moths before and after they laid their 

 eggs, and found their ovaries constituted exactly 

 like those of other female butterflies, but not a 

 trace of male spermatozoa could be discovered. J 

 The eggs could not therefore be impregnated, and 

 must undergo spontaneous development. 



Of the remarkable apterous butterfly, Psyche helix, 

 Siebold, whose caterpillar makes a spiral bag, no 

 one has yet been able to find the male, although it 

 has been sought for over fifteen years. And yet 

 these females annually lay their eggs in the pupa 

 envelope, which remains behind in the caterpillar 

 bag, and in the fall these produce the caterpillars. 

 On dissection, true eggs with micropyle, a seed- 

 vessel, but always without male spermatozoa, and a 

 copulating pouch are found. These peculiarities 

 preclude the opinion that the psyche, female is only 

 a nurse. 



V. Siebold and Schmid furthermore succeeded 

 repeatedly in obtaining caterpillars from the eggs 

 of a virgin silkworm, and from those of the Smerin- 

 thus, which became pupaa and emerged as perfect 

 male and female insects. 



A. Barthelemy$ also confirms the existence of 

 parthenogenesis in Bombyx mori, and furnishes 

 various proofs. He also observed the laying of 

 unimpregnated eggs by other butterflies, which are 

 hatched if they belong to the first generation of the 

 year, but never survive the winter. 



Jourdan|| also observed true parthenogenesis in 

 the silk-worm. 



At the forty-seventh meeting of Swiss naturalists 

 at Samaden, de Filippi reported that healthy cater- 

 pillars were hatched from the eggs of the Japanese 

 silk-butterfly, although they had certainly not been 

 fecundated, and mentioned a similar observation of 

 Curtis on the Bombyx atlas. 



In certain species of coccides Leuckart (p. 36) 

 also found parthenogenetical generation. In the 

 Lecanium and Aspidiotus, for instance, the eggs are 

 developed in tubes without being previously 



*True Parthenogenesis, etc., p. 111. 



fZur Kenntniss des Generations wechselsund der Partheno- 

 genese, etc., Frankfort, 1858, p. 51. 



% Also Leuckart, idem, p. 45. 



| Etudes et considerations Geuerales sur la Partheaogeneae, 

 (Annates des Sciences Naturales, XII, p. 307.) 



|] Compt. Rend , 1861, tome 53, p. 1093. 



