42 PARTHENOGENESIS 



fectly fertile : I say, perfectly fertile, or capable of producing 

 both sexes. For, to lay drone-eggs, according to my experience, 

 requires no fecundation at all. This is exactly the new and 

 peculiar point in my theory, which I at first only ventured to 

 put forward as a hypothesis, but which has since been com- 

 pletely confirmed. Three young queens with imperfect wings 

 have occurred during the past summer, and these, although, 

 from the imperfection of their wings, they could evidently never 

 have taken the fertilizing flight, and also on dissection proved 

 to be unfecundated, nevertheless laid drone-eggs*." " By this, 

 all the mysteries which we have hitherto vainly endeavoured to 

 unriddle, are completely solved. In the first place the enigma : 

 Why is it that many mothers they may be either queens or 

 workers in their form are only capable of propagating the 

 male sex or drones ? Because the former are either unfecun- 

 dated, or their fertility is exhausted ; the latter, on the other 

 hand, are incapable of fertilization/ 5 



" For I am firmly convinced that the egg-laying worker-bees, 

 which occur abnormally, are, from the want of a seminal recep- 

 tacle, just as little capable of being fertilized, as the young 

 queens from the want of sound wings. Moreover there is cer- 

 tainly no doubt, that by the peculiar tone of her wings the 

 queen allures the drones to her, and disposes them to copulation, 

 of which a worker is of course incapable. In the second place, 

 the before-mentioned power of the fertile queen to lay worker- 

 and drone-eggs at pleasure, is rendered very easy of explanation 

 by the fact, that the drone-eggs require no impregnation, but 

 bring the germ of life with them out of the ovary ; whilst other- 

 wise it would be inexplicable and incredible. Thus, as it has 

 already been shown that the ovaries are not impregnated, but 

 that the seminal receptacle is filled, during copulation, the queen 

 has it in her power to deposit an egg just as it comes from the 

 ovary and as the unfecundated mothers lay it ; or by the action 

 of the seminal receptacle, past which it must glide, to invest it 



* [Here Hunter would perhaps have repeated his question, " But did they 

 hatch?" The particulars of the experiment by which Dzierzon knew that 

 drones came out of these eggs ai e not detailed ; the fact, however, is established 

 by the observations of Siebold and Leuckart, given in a subsequent part of the 

 work. R. O.] 



