20 SUPPOSED CASES OF 



Quercus from the caterpillars, and pinned them immediately 

 after their exclusion. These deposited their eggs whilst impaled 

 upon the pins, and of these a great part were fertile, although in 

 this case, as Plieninger asserts, no fecundation had taken place. 

 He adds that the fertile eggs were distinguished from the barren 

 ones by their not collapsing like the latter, but retaining their 

 convexity until the exclusion of the young caterpillars. Whether 

 Plieninger actually watched for and saw the young caterpillars 

 quit their eggs, has not been mentioned. But even if we sup- 

 pose that the exclusion of the caterpillars really took place in 

 the present case, this phenomenon will certainly have come un- 

 expectedly upon Plieninger, and he will have omitted to guard 

 the impaled females with the necessary care, until the act of ovi- 

 position, against the access of males. 



I must still refer to two cases which have commonly been cited 

 as evidence of a Lucina sine concubitu^ but which upon closer 

 examination have nothing whatever to do with our question. 



One of these cases relates to the Bombyx, Orgyia gonostigma, 

 the apterous female of which, Godart reared from the caterpillar* 

 and saw it lay fertile eggs without copulation, a statement which 

 not only astonished Godart, but also Lister f and GoezeJ. But 

 Swammerdam and Reaumur || have already stripped all the 

 marvellous from this relation, by showing that Godart had not 

 recognized the winged individuals of this species as the males 

 belonging to this moth, so that, without suspecting it, he had at 

 the same time reared the males of the species, which very probably 

 might have given occasion to a copulation with this female un- 



* See Metamorph. et Hist. Nat.., pars secunda, de Insectis, 1662, p. 106. 

 Experim. xxx. 



t /. Goedartius, de Insectis cum notularum additione. Opera Lister. 1685, 

 No. 786. p. 190. 



J See his EntomologiscJie Beitrage, Band iii. Th. iii. 1781, p. 9. I must, 

 however, remark here, that Goeze has incorrectly quoted from Lister (Godart) 

 No. 78 a and b to Bombyx antiqua, instead of No. 79. In a copy of Godart's 

 Metamorphosis with coloured figures, which I have now before me, it is per- 

 fectly clear that the moths and caterpillars copied from it in Lister's edition, 

 Nos. 78 a and b, belong to Orgyia gonostigma, and No. 79 to Orgyia antiqua. 



See Biblia Natura, 1752, pp. 15 & 227. 



|| See Memoires pour servir a I'Histoire des Insectes, torn. i. part. i. 1 737, 

 12mo, p. 409. 



