PARTHENOGENESIS. 15 



was dead, a family of young caterpillars which had already de- 

 voured the pupa-case of their mother and a portion of their own 

 egg-shells. The untenability of the assertion that, in the cases 

 just mentioned, a Lucina sine concubitu took place, has already 

 been proved with such convincing reasons by the Theresian 

 professors [Denis and Schiffermuller), that I cannot do better 

 than appeal to the arguments which the learned Viennese 

 entomologists carried out in the following words*: — 



"We have too often observed that males have found their 

 way to females which had been excluded in our rooms, and were 

 perhaps even stuck upon a pin, and copulated with them, when 

 we did not at all expect it, and frequently only observed it 

 accidentally and late, and we have hardly observed this more 

 with any species than with the very two species of Bombyces 

 (in our catalogue, Fam. J. No. 1 and B. No. 1 t) which according 

 to the naturalists above mentioned laid fertile eggs without copu- 

 lation ; of the latter species indeed, we have frequently exposed 

 a female designedly in the evening at the open window, in order 

 to take males, which our friends required, and generally with 

 the desired result. The narratives even of both the learned men 

 appear to us not quite to exclude such an unperceived accident, 

 or an accidental confusion or mistake. Herr Basler did not 

 imprison the pupa but the excluded female in a glass (certainly 

 as soon as he observed it), and left the eggs lying uncared for, 

 upon a stone, until November; moreover he did not rear the young 

 caterpillars ; and Herr Bernoulli let the pupa with the box go 

 out of his sight until he found caterpillars already in it. Lastly, 

 these very two species have often been reared by Reaumur, 

 Rosel and other naturalists, and in very considerable numbers 

 by ourselves; and would they not once have asserted their 

 power of propagating without copulation, if they really possessed 

 it? and yet, the females which did not copulate, never laid 

 anything but barren eggs.' 5 Pastor von Scheven also has, with 

 great tact, weakened the statements of Basler and Bernoulli, 

 as proofs of the occurrence of a Lucina sine concubitu, by the 



* See Systematisches Verzeichniss der Schmetterlinge der Wiener Gegend, 

 herausgeyeben von einiyen Lehrern am K. K. Theresianum, 177<>. p. 293- 



t The Theresian Professors mean hereby Gastropacha quercifolia and Sa- 

 turnia pyri. 



