The Hallcti : Parthenogenesis 



of overseer fall? Their number Is so great 

 and they are all so full of zeal that disorder 

 would be inevitable. But we can leave this 

 small matter unsettled pending further in- 

 formation. 



The fact remains that females, females ex- 

 clusively, have come out of the eggs laid in 

 May. They have descendants, of that there 

 is no room for doubt; they procreate though 

 there are no males in their time. From this 

 generation by a single sex, there spring, two 

 months later, males and females. These 

 mate; and the same order of things recom- 

 mences. 



To sum up, judging by the three species 

 that form the subject of my investigations, the 

 Halicti have two generations a year: one in 

 the spring, issuing from the mothers who have 

 lived through the winter after being fecund- 

 ated in the autumn ; the other in the summer, 

 the fruit of parthenogenesis, that is to say, of 

 reproduction by the powers of the mother 

 alone. Of the union of the two sexes, females 

 alone arc born; parthenogenesis gives birth at 

 the same time to females and males. 



When the mother, the original ^cnitri.x, has 

 been able once to dispense with a coadjutor, 



449 



